Genre
Non-fiction.
Setting and Context
Nineteenth-century New York.
Narrator and Point of View
Jacob A. Riis is the narrator.
Tone and Mood
Realistic, alarming and compelling.
Protagonist and Antagonist
Riis’s work dwells on New York’s tenements.
Major Conflict
The problematic and poor quality tenements in New York.
Climax
Riis excludes a climax from his predominantly descriptive work.
Foreshadowing
Riis foreshadows that the wage-earners, whose numbers are likely to increase, will not get decent housing: "That it (the 'crowd of wage-earners) must be so housed here for the present and for a long time to come, all schemes of suburban relief being as yet utopian, impracticable." Riis' prediction surmises that the working class in New York is likely to face the challenge of indecent housing for a long time.
Understatement
N/A
Allusions
Riis employs historical allusions, such as wars, that have contributed to the evolution of tenements in New York.
Imagery
Black folks summer most due to the poverty inherent in the dilapidated tenements in New York. Riis incorporates photographs depicting various areas in New York to strengthen his thesis concerning the status of the tenements in New York.
Paradox
Riis argues that although the tenement is the major problem in New York's housing, it is also the solution.
Parallelism
In the chapter “How the Case Stands,” Riis employs parallelism by commencing the key deductions (which are eight) with the word “that.”
Metonymy and Synecdoche
Tenement denotes rooms within flats or buildings. ''The other half" denotes the individuals who are working and yet remain impoverished.
Personification
N/A
