Being an Outsider

The author presents several characters as outsiders throughout the novel in order to portray the hardships of moving into a new community, or existing on the fringes of a community that one has lived in all their life.

Dionne and Phaedra are the two most obvious examples of outsiders in the novel. After being uprooted from their lives in New York City, the only home they have ever really known, there are forced to move to a country that both of the girls barely even know when there mother can no longer care for them. It is difficult enough to have to move from a city to a city or a town to a town, but to move from one of the largest cities in the world to an old-fashioned village community like Bird Hill is especially difficult on the girls. Early on they...