Essay Questions

What is the significance of Uma reading Chaucer in the opening pages?

As she sits in the visa office waiting for her name to be called, Uma is trying to read “The Wife of Bath’s Tale” by Geoffrey Chaucer. This is one of the stories that make up Chaucer’s collection known as The Canterbury Tales, one of the most famous and influential workers in the history of English literature. The individual stories that comprise Chaucer’s book are connected by an overarching premise that serves as the "frame" for the tales: various assorted representatives of society making a pilgrimage to the grave of Thomas Becket Canterbury agree to tell stories on the way to and back from Canterbury. This premise has been adapted and updated by writers ever since and this very novel is an addition to that growing number. The primary difference is structural. Rather than appearing as self-contained, standalone stories, the author integrates the individual stories told by the characters into the “frame” story of surviving an earthquake which has trapped the people telling those stories together in the visa office.

What is the significance of the title?

It is Uma who proposes the idea of taking turns telling stories after the earthquake leaves them trapped and unsure of survival. This idea originates, of course, with her having been reading Chaucer before the quake hit. The motivation for the suggestion, however, is that in the aftermath of the devastation and fear, the survivors seem poised on the point of further adding to their problems by descending into chaos as disagreements erupted as to the best course of action to take as well as multiple claims to leadership by certain male survivors. Uma’s solution to avoiding or at least delaying this almost inevitable progression is the time-honored strategy of distraction. By specifically proposing that each story each person tells is focused on “one amazing thing” that has happened in their life, the hope is that the stories will become so engrossing the effects of chaos, fear, and hopelessness can be reduced if not entirely averted.

What is the significance of the aurora borealis in Uma’s story?

Uma tells a story about a deeply emotional reaction to her father telling her that he is planning to divorce Uma’s mother. The shock of this news sends her on a spiral in which she becomes untethered from her ambitions and impulsively hits the road with a girl named Jeri. Along the way, they pick up a hitchhiker Ripley. One night while sitting on the hood with their perceptions corrupted by a combination of alcohol and marijuana, Jeri suddenly spots weird ribbons of vivid reds, yellow, and greens swirling in the sky on the far horizon. Ripley finally manages to get the mush that is his brain working well enough to identify it as the aurora borealis. The next day as the two passengers sleep in the back seat, Uma learns over the radio that the light was actually caused by an explosion at a chemical plant. Something about the lights in the sky had shaken her out of a funk and by the time she heard this explanation, she was already returning to her old self and decides not to allow the letdown of truth get in the way of having experienced something amazing. Much later, she meets a now-dying Jeri one last time who asks her if it really was the aurora they had witnessed and Uma lies, telling her it was rather than confessing the truth. The significance of the aurora borealis is that it wasn’t the aurora borealis. Sometimes what turns out to be an amazing thing isn’t really the amazing thing one thinks it is, but still has the power to result in amazing consequences.