Genre
Novel
Setting and Context
The novel is set between 1937 and 1938.
Narrator and Point of View
Third-person narrative
Tone and Mood
Informative, optimistic
Protagonist and Antagonist
Pompey is the protagonist of the story.
Major Conflict
The major conflict is when Pompey is unable to refuse her boyfriend’s marriage proposal. Despite feeling no love for him, Pompey accepts Freddy’s proposal.
Climax
The climax is when Pompey gathers the strength to break off from the relationship with her boyfriend because she did not love him and wanted to have the freedom to concentrate on her writing career.
Foreshadowing
Freddy’s proposal to Pompey foreshadowed his bad ending since he married a woman who did not love him in the first place.
Understatement
The decision by Pompey to write a novel is understated. For instance, the novel is about her upbringing and touches on the rise and fall of the Nazi regime.
Allusions
The story alludes to relationship challenges and the struggles of Pompey to find her purpose in life.
Imagery
Images depicting sight are rampantly used in the text to enable the reader to see what is happening in the novel. For instance, when describing her current horse, the narrator says, “He is better than that horse I had this year in Cornwall, that horse that was called Kismet. He had a scythe-like movement of his long head, of his long snakelike neck.”
Paradox
The main paradox is that Pompey panics and accepts her boyfriend's proposal despite knowing that she does not love him.
Parallelism
The narrator’s upbringing is parallel to the fall of the Nazi regime.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
N/A
Personification
The horse Kismet is incarnated as having human abilities.
