Plot summary of the ending of The Elementals by Michael McDowell?

September 30, 2016 6:53 PM

I got a little distracted while I was listening to this audio book and the ending didn't make too much sense to me. Can someone explain it? The more detail the better, thanks!
posted by skjønn to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

Best answer: Spoilers below, obviously....



The Elemental manifestations kill Dauphin Savage, Lawton McCray when he tries to burn the Beldame mansions down, as well as Odessa Red. India eats Odessa's eyeballs (!), and gains the ability to see and detect the Elementals' presence. She and Luker succeed in destroying a manifestation in the shape of Marian Savage, and burn the third house down. India, Luker, Leigh, and Big Barbara flee Beldame and more or less return to normal life. Beldame itself is sold to the oil companies before finally being consumed in a hurricane.
posted by Transmissions From Vrillon at 9:24 PM on September 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: What is the deal with the twins?
posted by skjønn at 9:43 PM on September 30, 2016

Best answer: Earlier in the book, IndIa sketches a picture of Dauphin's great-great-grandmother holding two dolls without knowing where the image came from. Later, Luker and Dauphin recognize it as a sketch based on a photograph of Dauphin's ancestor holding two stillborn children, not dolls.

In the final page, India expresses aversion to India's newborn sons, Dauphin and Darnley, presumably because she associates them with the stillborn children she had sketched earlier, and the Savage mothers.
posted by Transmissions From Vrillon at 9:59 PM on September 30, 2016

Edit - that's aversion to Leigh's newborns, not India's.
posted by Transmissions From Vrillon at 5:39 PM on November 6, 2016