“Her helpless little heart was beating wildly, a bird trapped in her chest. A thousand bees buzzed in the curled pearl of her ear. No breath. A drowning child, a bird dropped from the sky. Darkness fell.”

Atkinson uses vivid imagery throughout the novel, as seen in this passage describing Ursula’s death by drowning. Life is often symbolized by breath, while here the metaphors of birds and bees represent her fragility. Most of Ursula’s deaths are indicated by some version of “Darkness fell,” which becomes a powerful repetition throughout the novel evoking death or an ending.

“Motherhood was [Sylvie’s] responsibility, her destiny. It was, lacking anything else (and what else could there be?), her life. The future of England was clutched to Sylvie’s bosom.”

In probing the power of human connections and the meaning of life, the novel suggests motherhood as one answer. Motherhood is Sylvie’s calling and purpose, as she imagines that her contribution to the world will be her children.

“Izzy never mentioned her baby. He had been adopted in Germany and Sylvie supposed he was a German citizen. How strange that he was only a little younger than Ursula but, officially, he was the enemy.”

Izzy’s absent child is an ongoing motif in the novel, the valence of which changes over time. Sylvie detests Isobel for giving up her child instead of answering the calling of motherhood, making the two characters antagonists and foils. The irony of thinking of a blood relation as an enemy intensifies the novel’s message about the human cost of war.