The Flying Avalons
The narrative profession of Anna Avalon before she went blind
What is a trapeze artist?
The total number of times the narrator claims she owes her very existence to her mother.
What is three times?
The specific medical condition that caused Anna to lose her vision in her old age.
What are cataracts?
These items, worn during the aerial performances, symbolize the complete trust and risky life conditions Anna embraced.
What are blindfolds?
The narrative point of view used by Louise Erdrich to tell the story through Anna's daughter.
What is first-person?
The name of the acrobatic performance act consisting of Anna and her first husband, Harold
Who were the Flying Avalons?
The location where Anna met her second husband, who eventually became the narrator's father.
What is a hospital?
The reason the adult narrator returns home to live with her aging mother in New Hampshire.
To read to her mother.
Repeated throughout the story, from the circus ring to the final rescue, these gestures symbolize deep connection and unlikely miracles of meeting.
What are kisses?
The author alters the chronological flow of the story by using these structural shifts to leap seamlessly between the present day and the past.
What are flashbacks?
This dramatic weather event struck the main circus tent pole during a performance, ending the trapeze act forever
What is lightning?
The life-changing skill that the narrator's father taught Anna while she was recovering from the circus tragedy.
What is reading?
To slow down the pacing and freeze a moment in time, the author describes Anna and Harold hanging upside down in mid-air right before this sudden catastrophe strikes.
What is a lightning strike?
The narrator's father equated learning this specific skill to a new "form of flight" for Anna.
What is reading?
The narrative creates localized dread early on by describing this sensory sign of fire before the actual disaster is introduced.
What is the smell of smoke?
Anna chose not to grab her falling husband's hands to protect this hidden reality.
What is her pregnancy?
The age of the narrator when the catastrophic house fire occurred.
What is seven years old?
The state where the family home is located and where Anna navigates her surroundings with precision.
What is New Hampshire?
This specific weather condition serves as a destructive force that shifts the trajectory of Anna's life in an instant.
What is a thunderstorm?
Early descriptions of the Flying Avalons' dangerous act serve as this device to hint at the impending circus tragedy.
What is foreshadowing?
Anna's physical injury sustained from grabbing a hot, electrified guy wire to save her own life.
What are severely burned hands?
The physical object outside the narrator's bedroom window that Anna scaled to complete the final rescue.
What is a tree? (A tree branch)
The narrator feels this brief emotion during the fire rescue because her mother stripped down to her undergarments to climb the tree.
What is embarrassment?
This physical asset of the family home contains old articles and stories that allowed the narrator to learn about her mother's secret past.
What are old newspapers?
The town graveyard holds the remains of these two individuals, who represent the family Anna lost before her second life began.
Who are Harold and her first unborn child?