The Ghost Bride Literary Elements

Fantasy/Historical Fiction

1880s Malaya, now known as Malaysia

Li Lan, the protagonist, narrates the novel from the first-person perspective

The tone of the novel is self-reflective and introspective, creating a mood that is both fast-paced but also peaceful in some senses.

Li Lan (Protagonist), Madame Lim, Lim Tian Ching, Master Awyoung, Fan (Antagonists)

The Lim family wants to force Li Lan to marry Lim Tian Ching in a ghost bride marriage, and later in the novel, it is discovered that the dead portion of the family is involved in a political scandal in the World of the Dead.

The climax occurs when Yan Hong confirms that it was she who killed Lim Tian Ching, driving Madame Lim to try to push her and Li Lan down a well.

The novel makes frequent use of foreshadowing, especially since the first-person narration allows Li Lan to reflect on events from the perspective of someone with hindsight. For example, her conversation with Old Wong where he discusses a ghost that once haunted their house foreshadows the story that Li Lan will learn from her grandfather's concubine once she crosses into the Plains of the Dead.

The book uses imagery heavily, painting beautiful pictures of late 19th century Malacca, as well as relying on description to relay Li Lan's different experiences of the physical and the spirit world. Choo also repeats images often: for instance, she uses the phrase "gaping maw" or some version of it multiple times throughout the text to communicate how something can be vast and dark, like the afterlife.

Choo explores paradox by having Li Lan be alive but still be deeply attached to the spirit world, and unable to move effectively through either.

Throughout the novel, Choo draws parallels between the physical and the spiritual world, even to the point where the worlds are nearly the same geographically, though they remain separate.