Garber uses discipline-specific questions to guide her analysis, and she outlines her questions before providing her analysis. First, she asks about the relationship between form and content of the novella’s structure, then she asks what the form displaces through the lens of psychoanalysis. Her background in gender studies leads her to question the relationships between the family members. Her final two questions interrogate what animals reveal about humans and whether literary analysis holds value.

Garber praises the text as a work of metafiction and as an academic novel. She shares a list of other academic novels she enjoys. She suggests that the names and titles are allusions to external institutions and individuals and believes that they are intended to be inside jokes for those within the literary community. Coetzee, she explains, uses pathos—emotional arguments—to portray the themes of animal rights, family, academia, consciousness, and death versus authority. She suggests the novella’s structure does not favor the viewpoints of Elizabeth or her opponents.

Garber views the lectures as a contest between poetry and philosophy, with philosophy dominating the discussions. Garber notes that the second lecture relies on philosophical thinking despite the lecture’s nominal interest in poetry. This contrast between philosophy and poetry is echoed in the relationship between Norma and Elizabeth.