About to die. And so on” (Russ 1). Russ implements such segment fragments from the very beginning to the very end of the novel, each one serving a certain purpose, but most of them stinking the atmosphere with a futile scent. In this specific case, the shortness of the fragments saturates the book with an impersonal coldness. Our protagonist utters such words in a such a swift and icy manner that make her seem as if she’s not averse to death, that there’s no point in delivering a long winded speech demonstrating her fear of the grave. There’s no talk of regrets, no people she she will miss, no people that will miss her; there’s no garrulous, panicked dialogue about how she is not prepared to die, that she hasn’t see enough, experienced enough. She candidly states, “We’re nowhere. We’ll die alone.” For a reader it’s refreshing to hear such words in a your typical ‘crash-landing, survive long enough until help arrives type’ of novel, but the words seem almost non human; perhaps it’s simply logical in her circumstances to accept death, but regardless, to voice said thoughts with such aplomb is inhuman. Facing death as our protagonist does, requires a non human spirit, but with closer reading of the passage, one begins to note that the narrator’s pride hides her unease at the ramifications of…