The Faery Handbag

“The Faery Handbag” by Kelly Link is a story where events in the narrative are told out of the order in which they actually happened. However, due to the many echoes scattered throughout the text, it is easy to see what is going on. Echoes of Scrabble, death and the search for immortality clearly show several main themes throughout. The echoes also serve to hint at what will happen later on in the story. “The Faery Handbag” by Kelly Link is a short story about loss and separation, specifically because of death; there are a lot of echoes scattered throughout the jumbled narration that hint at how the story will end.
One of the images that occurs the most is that of the game Scrabble. It’s obviously a game Genevieve, Zofia, and Jake play together often, so it represents a lot of their bond. It’s how Zofia goes about telling Genevieve about Baldeziwurlekistan, and it’s also described as similar to Baldeziwurleki divination tiles. This is why Genevieve uses her Scrabble board and tiles to figure out how and if she will find Jake and the handbag. “I flipped all the tiles upside-down and then I started picking them up in groups of seven. I tried to ask a question, but it was hard to just pick one. The words I got weren’t so great either, so I decided that they weren’t English words. They were Baldeziwurleki words” (Link, 23). Using the word …show more content…
Zofia was a big part of Genevieve’s life. They played Scrabble together, watched movies together, and Zofia would tell Genevieve stories about Baldeziwurlekistan. Zofia even came on Genevieve and Jake’s first date. After she’s dead, a huge part of Genevieve’s life is gone, replaced by the looming presence of loss and

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