She is, in that world, a study of a young girl's enthusiasm for her faith and her country, and for the man she thinks divine; and were the subject, so far as it relates to her character, well or clearly wrought, she might be made remarkable.

As it is wrought, it is so intertwisted with complex threads of thought and passion that any clear outline of her character is lost.

Both Djabal and she are like clouds illuminated by flashes of sheet lightning which show an infinity of folds and shapes of vapour in each cloud, but show them only for an instant; and then, when the flashes come again, show new folds, new involutions.

The characters are not allowed by Browning to develop themselves.
Anael, when she is in the preternatural world, loves Djabal as an incarnation of the divine, but in the natural world of her girlhood her heart goes out to the Knight of Malta who loves her.

The in-and-out of these two emotional states--one in the world of religious enthusiasm, and one in her own womanhood, as they cross and re-cross one another--is elaborated with merciless analysis; and Anael's womanhood appears, not as a whole, but in bits and scraps.