[Solved] 1. What is the historical background? What are the main characters? What is the story about? And how is it written?

When reading The Sea of Regret(in the attachment), read with the following questions in mind: 
1. What is the historical background? What are the main characters? What is the story about? And how is it written?
2. What aspects of the story may be considered unusual from your perspective? How is "passion," "duty," "femininity" and "morality" defined in the story? Do you consider the story "conservative"? 
3. In your response, you should not feel limited by these questions and should feel free to pose your own questions. Compose your response as if you are writing a mini essay, furnished with topic sentence, quotes with page numbers as evidence, comments and questions of your own. It doesn`t have to be long, two well-written paragraphs will do.