• Consider the violence described at the
beginning of the novel. How is the reader
distanced from the violent death of Bod’s
family? As you listen, scan the text and pay
Read and attention to the narrator, imagery, tone, setting:
what is the effect of the third person narration?
Listen (pp 1-12)
• The house sounds inviting – a family home, yet
Chapter the dark, the mist, and the moonlight cast it in a
different light – Gothic elements unhomely
1 • The first 2 pages – focus on a disembodied hand
and then on the knife – not until p.6 is the
owner of the hand and knife revealed
• POV - Notice how the (omniscient third person)
narrator addresses “YOU.” –p 4 and p. 12
• What is the effect in this style of address?
Physical Barriers and Boundaries
As we read, be mindful of how “boundaries” are transgressed –
be aware of “liminality.”
• The door of the house is open – presumably, Jack picked the
lock to enter, or the door was unlocked.
• Gates, walls, and locks on the graveyard gates serve as a
barrier and a physical boundary that delineates the spaces—
the place of the living and the place of the dead. However, it’s
not a complete binary since there are hours when the
graveyard is allocated for visitors.
Think of another way a binary does not work with respect to the
graveyard.
Liminal
Characters in the
Novel.
• Silas: Vampire
• The ghosts: dead, but their
‘histories and memories are
alive – Caius Pompeius -
senior buried 2000 years ago.
• Miss Lupescu: Werewolf –
transgresses the animal and
human world
• Liza: The ghost of a young
witch – no tombstone,
belongs nowhere
• The woman on the horse:
Death personified.
Jack and Silas
We are introduced to Silas –caretaker – he carries the keys, but we get a
first impression that he is neither a human nor a ghost through his
interaction with Jack. He also appears to have a strong disposition that
discourages opposition.
“Can I help you?” - tone
“The man Jack was tall. This man was taller. The man Jack wore dark
clothes. This man’s clothes were darker. People who noticed the man
Jack when he was about his business – and he did not like to be noticed
– were troubled, or made uncomfortable, or found themselves
unaccountably scared. The man Jack looked up at the stranger, and it
was the man Jack who was troubled” (18).
• Subtle hints that Silas has some form of power – he exerts this power
without threats of violence.
• Silas doesn’t correct the assumption that he is a caretaker – in a sense
he is.
• He appears to have the ability to erase the man Jack’s memory of
their interaction.
• Later he hints that he doesn’t eat, the ghosts recognize that he has
The Freedom of the Graveyard even though he is neither a ghost nor
Bod as a Liminal Figure
• Straddles the world of the living and the dead – Freedom of
the Graveyard.
• Supernatural abilities: he can penetrate stone, disappear,
see ghosts
• No name: lack of identity protects him, but it also keeps
him off the radar of the Jacks
“[A] variant of “liminal character,” appears in the domains of
folklore and speculative fiction and defines a fantasy
character who combines antithetical states. These doubled
beings are granted wisdom by force of their unique
perspective, but they are also unpredictable and dangerous.
(Michael Joseph)”
How does this apply to Bod?
How does Bod’s liminality make him both vulnerable
and dangerous? Can you predict how his existence
may be chaotic and dangerous?
Democracy in the
Graveyard
All 300 souls have the opportunity to express their opinions
– breakdown of the hierarchy according to age or station in
life – all have an equal voice:
• Caius Pompeius: most senior member of the community
who had asked to be buried in England – a man of status.
• Josiah Worthington Bart.: bought the land and gave it to
the city, a politician, brewer, and knighted
• Mother Slaughter: according to Silas, “a wise woman” of
whom everybody, “speaks highly.” (Flattery).
• Nehemiah Trott: incoherent poet
• Mr. Owens: had worked for Worthington
• Age – length of time they were buried
• Class and station in life
• Respectability
Hierarchy
and Class How does hierarchy function in the text; how
is it subverted?
