The Girl in His Shadow

“True, the neighborhood was faded and the house shabby, but the clinic was bright and pristine.”

The juxtaposition of Croft’s clinic and his actual living space demonstrates his values, for he places more emphasis on maintaining his professional space than in creating a model household. This indirect characterization shows that Croft eschews creature comforts and social conventions, while his innovative methodologies and desire to contribute to medical advancements compel him to spend liberally on his clinic and surgery.

“Enduring some female ill-temper—and eccentricity, Daniel thought […]—was a small price.”

In this passage, Daniel is indirectly characterized as a conventional, upper-class Victorian man, for his disparaging comments about women shows that he expects women to be capricious and emotional, as this is how upper-class women like his fiancée typically behave. Daniel also assumes that his interactions with Nora will be few because he intends to spend so much time in the clinic, and he does not expect her to be there too because this would be improper.

“She was used to problems of all sorts besides the usual domestic wrinkles: [including] the doctor’s repugnant but necessary trade in dead bodies.”

With this matter-of-fact tone, the narrative establishes Nora’s pragmatic approach to Croft’s illegal practice of buying corpses from graverobbers for the purposes of studying anatomy: something that many people would deem morally reprehensible. Her assessment establishes her practical yet nuanced thinking, for even as she recognizes the practice’s moral ambiguity, she also acknowledges its vital role in the development of medical knowledge.