Held Literary Elements

Historical Fiction

The setting spans multiple periods and locations across Europe and Canada. Significant places include Cambrai, France (1917), Suffolk, England (1984), and Estonia to Brest-Litovsk (1980).

The novel employs a third-person omniscient point of view.

The tone is reflective, poetic, and melancholic. The mood is contemplative and sad.

While Mara is a central figure, the novel does not have a single defined protagonist or antagonist. Rather, the protagonists include Mara, Alan, and Peter, each dealing with their emotional burdens. The antagonist is more abstract, represented by the characters' memories, grief, and inability to reconcile the past with the present.

The major conflict is internal—the struggle of the characters to cope with their past traumas and memories. Mara’s conflict revolves around reconciling her relationship with her deceased mother while also navigating her love for Alan.

The climax occurs when Mara opens up about her traumatic memories by sharing her experience as a nurse in a war zone.

The imagery of snow throughout the novel foreshadows the emotional erasure and confrontation with loss.

After recounting the death of her husband, Lia reflects on their time together: “What could she give him now? She knew what he would want for her: that stillness might grow to peace. Not still: held.”

The novel contains several allusions, particularly to Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies.

Rich imagery is woven throughout the novel, particularly of nature and light. The sky at dusk is described as “saturating, a deeper blue, darkness rising from within” while snow begins to "pinken in the fields."

A central paradox in the novel is that while the characters seek to preserve their memories, they also struggle with the haunting nature of those memories.

Mara’s relationship with her mother parallels her impending motherhood as the trauma experienced by one generation is echoed in the next.

N/A

Nature is heavily personified in the novel. Snow “invents its own silence,” imbuing it with an active role in shaping the emotional landscape of the characters.