effects of prejudice (esp insular attitudes + xenophobia)

• ‘plenty, here, has wed itself to leanness’ (ch1, p.g.5)


  crace makes clear from early on that village is struggling to survive. harvest, gathered by hand with such effort, is only just sufficient
• ‘paltry fifty-eight’ people (p9)

  ‘not had much success with breeding…or raising sturdy offspring’ (ch2, p19)


  numbers are dwindling, makes you question why allowing outsiders in would be a bad thing
• ’protective’ and ‘fearful’ (ch2, p17)


  due to struggling harvest and lack of enough food for current population, become fearful of outsiders that may dwindle their supply
• ’ditched and fences against the outside world’ (ch2, p21)


  display an inward-looking attitude, with what can be called a siege mentality
• ‘have tenancy to spare’ yet suspicious of ‘anyone who was not born with local soil under their fingernails’ (ch2, p20)


  due to loss of previous villagers, have homes to spare yet due to their prejudice they do not offer it up
• ’they’d defend our acres with their lives’ (ch1, p9)


  sense of being under threat + violence that may ensue is made clear in ch1, younger men declare this