Characterisation

Pia, the main character in the short story, is a woman of forty-years-old. The story depicts her exactly on her fortieth birthday, returning home from work. The author uses both direct and indirect characterisation to describe her physically and mentally.

In the beginning, we get to know that “It was this heat; so late in September. But Pia kept the windows up; it felt safer like that” ( l. 2-3). Through this indirect characterisation, the reader understands that Pia wants to separate herself from the outside world, focusing on her thoughts and feelings in the privacy of her car. When she hears the news about “neutrinos – ghostly subatomic particles, which pass through our bodies all the time – have broken the universe’s fundamental speed limit: the speed of light” ( ll. 5-6), Pia begins to imagine those particles passing through her body. She begins to imagine how great it would feel to be able to bend time: "She thought about bending time backwards, about slipping into her life-already-lived, watching as effect morphed into its cause” ( ll. 51-52)

This phrase lets the reader understand Pia’s melancholy: she feels the time has passed too fast, and she wan...