When the World Tips Over

Anagnorisis comes from a Greek word that is often translated as “recognition” and suggests the act of gaining new knowledge. In literary works, it is often used to mark the moment that a character makes an important realization about their identity. This new recognition typically impacts character development as well as plot.

In When the World Tips Over, there are several moments that serve as anagnorisis. Cassidy experiences two of them: first when she realizes that Dexter Brown is her father, and second when she realizes that “Dexter” is in actuality Theo Fall, and she has half-siblings in the town of Paradise Springs. Dizzy undergoes an echo of this moment of experiencing a new identity when she takes Theo’s hand and self-consciously thinks of herself a new person, “a girl holding her father’s hand on a porch in the sunshine” (344).

Wynton, though he is the most physically static character, trapped in a coma for most of the frame story, has several powerful moments of recognition in his narrative. The first is when, after catching Clive and Bernadette in bed together, he realizes he might not be Theo Fall’s son.