Friendship

This is the narrative's central thematic concern, in that all its situations, characters and events in some way or another relate to the question of what friendship is, what it means, how it manifests, what it requires, what narrator Queenie Bean thinks it is, means, manifests and requires. In other words, there is some question as to whether her perspective is in fact authorial perspective, whether what Queenie says is what the author intends the reader to believe.

It's true that some of the aspects of friendship that Queenie values (loyalty, trust, respect) are unarguably and universally positive. The question of perspective arises because of the context and circumstances in which Queenie and the other members of the Persian Pickle Club apply those values. Those circumstances include the involvement of the Pickles in what might be described, particularly in the context of the time and place in which...