Broken Country

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and child death.

“I don’t know I am trespassing, I am lost in a dreamworld, my head full of romantic scenarios in which I triumph. I picture myself beside a fountain with an orchestra in full flow, receiving an impassioned declaration of love. I read a lot of Austen and Brontë at this time, I have a tendency to embellish.”

This passage establishes Beth’s romantic imagination through first-person narration that immediately reveals her literary influences, two British women authors, Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice, Emma) and Charlotte Bronte (Jane Eyre, Villette). Beth’s admission that she embellishes the truth signals her unreliability as a narrator while foreshadowing how her tendency to romanticize will affect her perception of Gabriel throughout their relationship.

“The inside of Gabriel’s tent is like nothing I’ve ever seen, it feels like entering an alternate universe. There’s a double mattress made up with sheets and blankets and a very regal-looking bedspread in red velvet; I can imagine it topping Louis XIV’s four-poster. Sheepskin rugs cover the floor, there’s a little bedside cabinet with a water decanter and two glasses; he even has a small bookcase filled with paperbacks.”

The tent represents Gabriel’s ability to create enchantment within his privileged world, functioning as both a literal and symbolic liminal space between civilization and nature. The Louis XIV reference draws attention to the class divide that underlies his and Beth’s relationship, with Gabriel’s aristocratic trappings appearing exotic to Beth, establishing the theme of Navigating Class Conflict and Social Division. The meticulously arranged details—the sheepskins, water decanter, and bookcase—reveal the artifice behind Gabriel’s seemingly spontaneous bohemianism, suggesting that his romantic gestures are more calculated than they appear, adding early development to his character.

“What can I say about these long moments where we just look at each other, allowing ourselves to feel the sensation of him inside me, the two of us connected in the most intimate way? I’d imagined it so many times but it’s nothing like I thought. My heart is so full of feeling, emotions I cannot name, neither joy nor sorrow but something in between. This is us, I think. This is us.”

Beth’s rhetorical question introduces an intimacy that transcends physical connection, using language that emphasizes emotional rather than physical sensation. The