Genre
Historical Fiction
Setting and Context
The novel is set in 1940 in Lodon during the Blitz
Narrator and Point of View
The novel is told from the third-person perspective of an unnamed narrator.
Tone and Mood
The novel is violent, tense, intense, energetic, loving, and cooperative.
Protagonist and Antagonist
Sam is the protagonist of the novel; the Nazis and the Blitz are the antagonist of the novel.
Major Conflict
The major conflict of the novel is Sam's struggles to deal with the Blitz, his personal life, and the politics of the BBC.
Climax
The climax of the novel occurs when Sam is killed by the umbrella bomb that has landed on his car.
Foreshadowing
Sam's death is foreshadowed by earlier descriptions of umbrella bombs.
Understatement
Just how defenseless the British people were is understated throughout the novel.
Allusions
There are allusions in the novel to the history of Europe during World War II, the geography of the United Kingdom, Christianity, popular culture around 1940, and mythology.
Imagery
As bombings during the Blitz grows more frequent, imagery surrounding death and the loss of human life becomes more frequent.
Paradox
N/A
Parallelism
The struggles of each of the citizens of the United Kingdom (their struggles to survive despite bombings during the Blitz, chiefly) are paralleled with each other because each citizen must face the same thing.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
The Blitz refers to the bombings that took place across the United Kingdom (but primarily in London) from September 7, 1940, to May 11, 1941, which devastated the country and its citizens.
Personification
The Nazi bombers who drop bombs on London are personified throughout the novel.
