51 pages • 1 hour read

Counterfeit

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2022

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-4

Part 1, Chapters 5-8

Part 1, Chapters 9-11

Part 2, Chapters 12-14

Part 2, Chapter 15-Epilogue

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Literary Devices

Unreliable Narrator

An unreliable narrator in a literary work is one whose ability to accurately reflect the facts of an event is called into question, either through the style of narration, events in the story, or challenges from other characters. The convention, especially with first-person narrators, is to believe the narrator is being truthful about their own story. Ava’s many asides and addresses to her audience, the detective, create a confiding, confessional style that furthers the belief she is sincere. Later chapters with a different narrator cast a different light on Ava’s motivations and actions, suggesting the Ava that Winnie sees is far different from the persona Ava has constructed for the detective. This throws Ava’s remorse, repentance, and insistence about victimhood into question, making her an unreliable witness to her own experience.

Point of View

The point of view of a narrative controls the information available in the story, adds to the tone, and helps develop character. The first-person narration used in the chapters of Ava’s confession conveys a direct, confiding tone and lends veracity, and reader sympathy, to the story Ava tells. In first-person point of view, a protagonist shares their direct experience, often with a portrayal of emotions and reactions that increase reader identification.

The point of view in Counterfeit changes occasionally within Part 2 to provide new information. While Ava has been protesting through Part 1 that she doesn’t know where Winnie is, the point of view shifts to third person in certain chapters of Part 2 to inform the reader of Winnie’s doings. The third-person chapters provide Winnie’s perspective on her months with Ava, their current challenges, and the future Winnie is planning; Ava would reveal none of this to the detective in the first-person chapters. This new information adds surprise and interest.

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The Epilogue is told in third person but seems to be an omniscient point of view as this narrator describes both Winnie and Ava’s experiences. This narrator provides information that reflects on the plot and theme of the novel as a whole. This final shift in point of view underscores that the story is Winnie and Ava’s combined adventure.

Suspense

All narratives rely to some extent on suspense and provoking the reader’s interest in what happens next. Narratives that introduce mystery and surprise especially stimulate the need to know how a conflict resolves. Counterfeit creates initial suspense first through the mystery of the identity of the detective to whom Ava is talking; this raises the question of how Ava got implicated in and then apprehended for a crime. When Part 2 shifts to Winnie’s story and introduces new information through a new point of view, which proves that Ava was an unreliable narrator, the surprise creates further suspense as to what else Ava is lying about. Thereafter, the switch between first person, of Ava telling a story of repentance, and third person, of a narrator detailing the plans Ava and Winnie made, creates further suspense for the reader, who wishes to know how the story will resolve.