Genre
Fictional novel
Setting and Context
The action in the novel is situated in Jerusalem and it starts in the 1995s and continues until the present time.
Narrator and Point of View
The story is told from the perspective of a third-person objective point of view.
Tone and Mood
The tone and mood in the novel is a tragic and violent one.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonists are the innocent bystanders and the antagonists are the terrorists.
Major Conflict
The major conflict is between the need to live in peace and the threat represented by terrorists described in the novel.
Climax
The story reaches its climax when Bassam and Rami decide to start militating for the end of the war raging in their country.
Foreshadowing
The violent death described at the begining of the novel foreshadows the later instances in which other terrorist attacks will kill other people.
Understatement
When the interviewed people at the begining of the novel claim that only people from a certain background end up becoming terrorists is an understatement because it is after described how virtually anyone can end up committing a terrorist act.
Allusions
The main allusion we find here is that any person in this world could one day find themselves a victim of a terrorist attack.
Imagery
The description of Smadar Elhanan's mutilated body is an extremely powerful one because it is used to portray the violence of the terrorist attacks.
Paradox
One of the most paradoxical ideas is the way in which the anti-war groups mentioned here are described as refusing to get involved in the anti-war protests.
Parallelism
N/A
Metonymy and Synecdoche
The bombs are used in the novel as a general way through which the narrator makes reference to the power which the terrorist groups had.
Personification
We have a personification in the sentence "the images shown on the TV that morning silenced a whole country and took the breath away from countless people".
