Genre
Young Adult Fiction, Philosophy
Setting and Context
Late 1990s/early 2000s, Taeveringen, Denmark
Narrator and Point of View
The narrator is Agnes, a seventh grade girl who is telling the story of what she witnessed on her first day in seventh grade.
Tone and Mood
Bleak, depressing, savage
Protagonist and Antagonist
To begin with, the seventh grade class members are the progatonists, Pierre Anton the antagonist.
Major Conflict
There is conflict between Agnes and Gerda regarding Agnes putting her new shoes into the heap.
Climax
The seventh graders, led by Sophie, turn on Pierre Anton and kill him, then set fire to his body inside the old sawmill. The building burns to the ground.
Foreshadowing
Agnes forces Gerda to put her hamster on the Heap of Meaning which foreshadows the shift in the building of the Heap of Meaning, as it is no longer kids giving up a favorite toy or book, but young people beginning to engage in violence and killing.
Understatement
Agnes says one should not play around with meaning. This flippant observation is a horrible understatement as it is playing around with the existential meaning of their lives that caused the death of defenseless animals, and their classmate.
Allusions
The initial announcement by Pierre Anton alludes to the principles of existential nihilism that are being "discussed" in the narrative.
Imagery
The imagery is savage and bleak, the author describing in detail the violent way in which Sophie loses her virginity, and also the way in which Pierre Anton is killed. There is particularly vivid dead animal imagery that creates within the reader a picture of some kind of hell where the worst side of humankind is on show.
Paradox
Agnes is angry at the prospect of losing a pair of espadrilles but seems unbothered at the prospect of killing an animal.
Parallelism
There is a parallel between this novel and the William Golding novel "Lord of the Flies" in that we see what happens when a group of children are allowed to create their own world where adults are not involved, and where they consequently descend into savagery and murder.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
Seventh graders / seventh grade is the term used to describe the children as a group instead of listing all of them by name.
Personification
The Heap of Meaning is personified in that it is given a power to influence the children and cause them to act in a murderous way.
