Genre
Novel
Setting and Context
Ireland. Twentieth-century
Narrator and Point of View
First-person narrator
Tone and Mood
Fantasy, comical, mystifying, and exhilarating
Protagonist and Antagonist
An Irish boy (the narrator) is the protagonist. Irish Liberation Army (IRA) is the antagonist.
Major Conflict
The Irish boy’s quest to disentangle his family’s history in the backdrop of religious fallacies, fear, and mistrust.
Climax
Uncle Eddie’s ill-fated expiration that is attributed to the IRA.
Foreshadowing
N/A
Understatement
The narrator understates the winter coldness of 1947 by associating it with paradise.
Allusions
Religious allusions permeate Deane’s novel.
Deane alludes to fairy tales.
Imagery
Police are depicted as vicious and homicidal due to their supposed participation in Eddie's demise. Protests create images of the police versus private citizens.
Perceptions of apparitions accentuate the omnipresence of superstitions in the household.
Paradox
The title "Reading in the Dark" is paradoxical because light is essential for one to read.
Parallelism
N/A
Metonymy and Synecdoche
‘The devil’ denotes ill-lack or jinxes.
Personification
The house is personified.
