Woolcombe
Xan Lyppiatt’s ancestral home and the place where Theo Faron spent his summer holidays as a child, Woolcombe represents the lifelong imbalance of power between cousins Theo and Xan, and the resulting tensions that…
read analysis of WoolcombeTheo’s Diary
At the start of the novel, Theo Faron has just begun keeping a diary—the first page of the book is his first entry. As it is both “the first day of a new year and…
read analysis of Theo’s DiaryNatalie
In 1994—over twenty-five years before the start of the book’s narrative, and the year before Year Omega, the end of fertility—Theo accidentally backed his car over his only daughter, fifteen-month-old Natalie, while leaving…
read analysis of NatalieThe Coronation Ring
The Coronation Ring, or “the wedding ring of England,” as Theo refers to it, is an ornate and “vulgar” bauble which Xan wears as a symbol of his absolute, unquestioned power as the Warden of…
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