67 pages • 2 hours read
Kate MortonThe Clockmaker's Daughter
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Multiple Timelines
As a narrative structure, multiple timelines allow an author to tell several stories that span a large chunk of time. Instead of telling the story chronologically, however, as an epic or saga might do, the multiple timeline structure sets different stories side by side, moving backwards and forwards in time. Typically, the device requires an anchoring moment or timeline. In the case of The Clockmaker’s Daughter, this anchoring perspective comes from Birdie, who exists in the present moment but is able to look back on the stories that came before.
The multiple timelines allow an author to develop and amplify certain themes and symbols by creating symmetries of event and character. In this novel, for example, many characters carry different burdens of grief. The multiple timelines also allow an author to create suspense and mystery around events discussed in multiple time periods, for example the fate of the Radcliffe Blue.
Moreover, the multiple timelines let the author separate a question and answer in the novel that creates the denouement. For example, in The Clockmaker’s Daughter, Elodie learns that the art world has long been occupied with what happened to Edward Radcliffe’s missing masterpiece. Later, Juliet sees this unfinished painting hanging in the local pub. This creates dramatic irony: Juliet has no idea what the painting represents, but the reader does.
Flashback
A flashback introduces background information that has a bearing on the conflict or action, or to create a tonal resonance. Kate Morton uses flashback frequently throughout The Clockmaker’s Daughter to introduce and amplify characters’ inner conflicts.
Jack’s flashback to his brother’s death, for instance, resonates with the theme of The Influence of Grief, marking him as one of Birdie’s “special ones.” In Juliet’s sections, her flashback to her honeymoon with Alan adds depth and poignancy to their love affair, which builds impact around the revelation that Alan is dead. The result of the frequent flashbacks, in combination with the multiple timelines of the novel, is a great deal of moving backward and forward in time. Morton provides a timeline of the events occurring at Birchwood Manor at the end of the book to help orient the reader.
Suspense
All narratives, particularly thrillers and mysteries, rely on suspense for the dramatic climax; it prompts the reader’s desire to know what happens next. In The Clockmaker’s Daughter, Morton chiefly builds suspense by fragmenting the narrative into different pieces that each hold a clue about an event of concern for the character. The suspense of finding the identity of the woman in the photograph and exploring her family’s connection to Birchwood drives Elodie, for example, while the suspense around central questions like what happened to Birdie, who stole the Radcliffe Blue, what happened to Edward’s painting, and who killed Fanny all keep the reader turning the page. For mysteries, the reader’s role in guessing or answering the central questions works in tandem with the author’s use of suspense.
Tragedy
The Clockmaker’s Daughter incorporates tragedy in the common usage of the term, which describes a devastating event, usually fatal, that inflicts lasting damage on survivors. The murder of young Fanny, Lauren’s car crash, and the drowning deaths of Ben Rolands and May Hawkins are all tragedies by this definition. Furthermore, the devastating loss of life inflicted by war, demonstrated by the deaths of Tom Gilbert and Alan Wright, provides a macro tragedy that frames the narrative.
Birdie’s story is a tragedy in the dramatic sense of a character who struggles against and is eventually defeated by circumstances outside their control. As resilient and adaptable as Birdie proves to be in life, she is trapped and eventually killed not so much by Lucy as by the greed and possessiveness of Martin and his mother, Mrs. Mack. While Birdie’s life is a tragedy in this sense, in the larger perspective of her afterlife, her story ends on a hopeful note in which she overcomes her circumstances.
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By Kate Morton
