Life After Life

Ursula is the protagonist and the primary point-of-view character. The central premise of the novel is that she is reborn each time she dies. Ursula lives several lives over the course of the book, and much of the novel’s action, as well as its major themes, rests on how these lives are both the same and different based on the choices Ursula makes. Despite the wide variation in her actions and their outcomes, her personality remains relatively unchanged throughout the novel. She is sensitive, perceptive, and compassionate. Her father describes Ursula as “watchful, as if she were trying to drink in the whole world through those little green eyes that were both his and hers. She was rather unnerving” (486). This curiosity and vigilance remain her greatest strengths throughout her many lives.

Ursula begins the novel relatively naïve, content to simply observe what goes on about her, and unsure how to respond to danger. Her premonitions, which develop as she lives successive lives, cause her to be anxious and sometimes afraid for reasons she doesn’t understand. Sensations from previous lives impinge on her present, making her feel as if she has a dark and active inner landscape.