Theme: Grief/Loss & How We Deal With It

The entire novel, "The Falls", is based on the loss and struggles that Ariah goes through in her life. The primary two being the suicide of her new husband, Gilbert Herskine, and the fatal car accident of her real love, second husband Dirk Burnaby. What is significant is not the loss themselves but the presence the deceased have long after they have passed away.


When Ariah's first husband leaped off "The Fall's" she was devastated, her life stood still as she searched endlessly 7 days and 7 nights for his body in the monstrous Niagara Falls. After Gilbert's body was found in the river, she retreated back to her hometown in Troy, trying to go back to  a normal life. Soon after, Dirk Burnaby shows up at her door. He proposes to her and she accepts, beginning a new life for Ariah Burnaby. She never speaks of Gilbert, and only refers to him as the other, seemingly successfully shutting out the dark part of her past. But although Gilbert dies, Ariah will not escape him. A part of him will alway be there; in the form of her first born son, Chandler Burnaby. Ariah has doubts that Dirk is the father, because Gilbert and her had consumnated their marriage the night of their wedding. She shuts these fears out. But as Chandler grows older it is evident that he is not at all like the Burnaby clan, with his tall, lanky stature and reclusive ways, but far more like his real father. Although she will never admit, Chandler's presence is a daily reminder to Ariah of Gilbert and her trgic past.
Ariah's second husband, Dirk Burnaby, also dies tragically later in the novel. His car carreened off a cliff into the Niagara Falls days after his controversial Love Canal case and arrest following. The night before his death, Dirk had dropped off a puppy named Zarjo for his 3 children, much to the anger of his now estranged wife, Ariah. After his death, Zarjo seems to take the role of Dirk in th household. This is evident because of Ariah's original distrust of Zarjo that eventully grew into love, much like Ariah and Dirk's relationship. Dirk could not be in hiw wife and children's lives so he put Zarjo there to love and protect them.


The theme of grief is evident throughout the book, because the whole plot of the book is tragedy and how life proceeds after. Picking up the pieces and moving on after loss. This is a very relateable topic to life in general and American culture because it is something we have all experienced or watched being experienced. The symbols that arise through this theme are interesting, because it makes you think what 'replacements' might appear in real life after a death.