Christopher Booker is a scholar who wrote that every story falls into one of seven basic plot structures: Overcoming the Monster, Rags to Riches, the Quest, Voyage and Return, Comedy, Tragedy, and Rebirth. Shmoop explores which of these structures fits this story like Cinderella’s slipper.
Plot Type : Rebirth
Falling Stage
The narrator is returning to the area of Northern Quebec where she grew up. It's not exactly a warm and fuzzy homecoming, as she's coming back (after a long absence, apparently) because her father is missing. She brings her boyfriend, Joe, and another couple (David and Anna) to help (and also to drive—it's David car that brings them into town).
Recession Stage
Upon arrival, the narrator discovers that her father hasn't turned up yet, and the family cabin doesn't appear to have been touched by a human presence for quite a while. The narrator does a little searching, but she soon realizes it would be really difficult to find her father on the island without a lot more people to help. So, they hang out, eat, and fish while the narrator considers what could have happened to her father and tries to figure out what comes next.
Imprisonment Stage
Although initially thinking that David and Anna are like the best couple ever, the narrator soon discovers that they have a weird, abusive, and adultery-fixated relationship. David spends a good portion of his time ogling the narrator and trying to get her to have sex with him, which the narrator doesn't particularly appreciate. Meanwhile, Joe seems interested in taking their relationship in directions that the narrator is not super-enthusiastic about (i.e., down the aisle). Ostensibly to punish her for being lukewarm about their future prospects as a couple, he sleeps with Anna. So, yeah, super-awkward times are had.
While all this sexual drama is going on, the narrator remains privately fixated on figuring out what is happening with her father.
Nightmare Stage
Having found some crazy-looking drawings of her dad's, the narrator believes that her father might have disappeared because he'd gone insane. However, after finding some additional papers and letters, she realizes that he was probably tracing rock paintings to send to a scholar acquaintance who studied such things.
She wants to confirm this theory, so she goes out hunting for the locations of these paintings based on a map her dad had left behind. While she's diving down in the lake trying to find one on the side of the cliff, she has some kind of vision, or hallucination, of a fetus she aborted at some unspecified time in the past. She realizes that she's been remembering her past all wrong, covering up certain unpleasant aspects of it that she didn't want to confront.
Then, she goes back to the house and has to endure some serious awkwardness with David, Anna, and Joe. David and Anna harass the narrator for not giving into David's sexual advances, and Anna taunts her for not sleeping with Joe (with whom Anna has started sleeping, apparently).
To make matters worse, Paul comes by with the news that her father's body has been found—bummers all around.
Rebirth Stage
In light of her epiphany in the lake, the narrator no longer wants to leave the cabin. So, she hides from the others on the day they were set to leave and lets them depart without her. The evening before that, though, she gets Joe to have sex with her, which she believes results in a pregnancy that will bring her unborn child back.
Once she's gotten the others out of her hair, she tries to figure out a way to see and connect with her parents (presumably in a spiritual sense, since they are dead). To do that, she basically sheds off the trappings of her human life (i.e., removes her clothes, trashes the objects inside her parents' cabin, etc.) and starts living outside in a "lair." So, yeah, she kind of starts acting like an animal, engaging in acts and rituals that she believes will bring her closer to wherever, or whatever, her parents are.
Once she believes she has seen them, she seems resigned to going back and resuming her "normal" life. She starts preparing for going back to that world—you know, by putting clothes back on, resuming eating, that kind of thing. In addition to whatever spiritual experience she's had, she's come to some conclusions about herself, her responsibilities toward others, and how she should be acting from now on.
Joe returns to the island to try to find her. The novel ends with him calling to her, and her listening and mulling over what to do. We don't know whether she decides to go back with him, but we do know she has determined that he's a good egg and she does in fact love him. Hmm…