The motif of animal behavior provides a recurring metaphorical lens through which the novel examines the characters’ complex and often primal social dynamics. These observations frame their actions as expressions of instinct, reflecting the theme of The Reshaping of Friendships in Adulthood. For example, Bailey’s cantankerous and infertile swans, Hissy and Prissy, mirror her own fiercely independent and ultimately non-partnered path to motherhood. Similarly, Van’s discussion of ospreys that mate for life reflects his initial, idealized vision of partnership with Caroline, a vision that proves unsustainable. 

The motif takes on a darker tone when four-year-old Hale, in a moment of uncanny insight, explains the phenomenon of the “queen ball.” He details how worker bees surround and kill their queen, noting, “The bees make a vewy tight knot around her and then flap their wings as hard as they can until it gets so hot the queen suffocates” (96). This chilling description of social annihilation is a metaphor for the group’s own capacity for cruelty and exclusion, particularly in the wake of the social fallout from Caroline’s story. 

This motif culminates in the depiction of the aggressive, biting greenhead flies that plague the town each July. These flies are a violent force of nature, as Van explains to Caroline after her first bloody bite: “They have scissor-like jaws, and they basically masticate the skin to lap up the blood” (62). Their arrival during the peak of summer, a time meant for pleasure and relaxation, emphasizes the novel’s argument that pain is an inescapable part of the Greenhead social environment. For Caroline, the flies mark her harsh initiation into the town’s hidden cruelties; her bite is a physical manifestation of the emotional wounds to come. Furthermore, the flies act as a narrative catalyst. Caroline’s attempt to escape them by kayaking leads her directly into the path of Ned, a fateful encounter that forces her to confront uncomfortable truths about her art and her past. In this way, the greenhead flies represent the raw, unpleasant side of reality that ultimately drives characters toward painful but necessary self-reflection. By drawing these parallels, the novel suggests that the complex loyalties and betrayals within this human circle are as ancient and instinctual as the behaviors found in the natural world.