Kerewin Holmes’s tower in The Bone People constitutes both a physical manifestation of her isolation from the world and its spiral staircase becomes a representation of the whirling gyre that consumes her former selfhood. Hulme describes the construction of the tower as “A concrete skeleton, wooden ribs and girdle, skin of stone, grey and slateblue and heavy honey-coloured” creating the uncanny connection between an artificial man-made structure and the organic human frame (8). Kerewin is literally creating a “prison” that cages her true self from the world and protects her from the ravages of emotional connection. She locks herself away in her tower, inverting the classic Gothic damsel-in-need-of-rescuing trope by committing self-imposed exile. This is not a liberating act however, as the introduction of Joe and Simon shows how isolated Kerewin has become since the break with her
Kerewin Holmes’s tower in The Bone People constitutes both a physical manifestation of her isolation from the world and its spiral staircase becomes a representation of the whirling gyre that consumes her former selfhood. Hulme describes the construction of the tower as “A concrete skeleton, wooden ribs and girdle, skin of stone, grey and slateblue and heavy honey-coloured” creating the uncanny connection between an artificial man-made structure and the organic human frame (8). Kerewin is literally creating a “prison” that cages her true self from the world and protects her from the ravages of emotional connection. She locks herself away in her tower, inverting the classic Gothic damsel-in-need-of-rescuing trope by committing self-imposed exile. This is not a liberating act however, as the introduction of Joe and Simon shows how isolated Kerewin has become since the break with her