“Laurence was comfortable to talk to because of his indifference to every shade of her personality. With him, she felt committed by speech itself to a display of such unfathomable silliness that she might just as well come out—and did—with assertions surprising at times to herself. […] It was those tender, those receptive listeners to whom one felt afterwards sold and committed.”

This early description of Lois’s feelings reveal how much pressure she feels to conform to what others expect of her. She also feels the pressure to determine who she is and what she wants as a young adult, something she anxiously wants but has yet to find.

“Behind the trees, pressing in from the open and empty country like an invasion, the orange bright sky crept and smouldered.”

This is an early moment of visual foreshadowing. The demesne surrounding Danielstown “burns” with the orange of the sunset, foreshadowing the actual burning of Danielstown at the end of the novel.

“Are you sure we will not be shot at if we sit out late on the steps?”

Francie’s question provides one of the first glimpses into the real danger around Danielstown and in Ireland more broadly. Although the Naylors and Hugo dismiss her concerns, those concerns turn out to be appropriate later in the novel.