The Library at Mount Char

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of cursing, rape, mental illness, child abuse, child sexual abuse, child death, death by suicide, suicidal ideation, animal cruelty and death, graphic violence, death, physical abuse, and emotional abuse.

“They came to understand that Father had lived for a very long time. More, over the course of this long life, he had mastered the crafting of wonders. He could call down lightning, or stop time. Stones spoke to him by name.”

These lines concisely reveal the immensity of the knowledge and power that Father wields. The text never delves into the semantics of whether Father is a god, but there are many parallels between him and the deities of known mythologies. Father didn’t create the universe, he later reveals, but this quote establishes that he has godlike powers, thereby setting the stakes of the novel’s central conflict over who will succeed him.

“Carolyn rose and stood alone in the dark, both in that moment and ever after.”

The deaths of Isha and Asha mark a pivotal point in Carolyn’s life and character arc. It can be viewed as the moment in which her innocence is lost. The savage murder of the animals she loves opens her eyes to Father and David’s cruelty. It sparks her hatred for them, as well as an intense desire for revenge that forms the basis of her character’s motivation. Standing in the dark metaphorically represents this loss of innocence, and Carolyn’s choice to adapt to the horrors of her new life by closing her heart, becoming cold and calculating.