The Assault Literary Elements

Fictional novel

The action takes place in Germany and in Amsterdam in 1945.

The action is told from the perspective of a third-person subjective point of view.

The tone and mood are violent.

The protagonist is Anton and the antagonist is identified as being the Nazi regime.

The major conflict is a political one and is between the Allied forces and the Nazi regime.

The story reaches its climax when Anton is left in the care of his relatives living in Amsterdam.

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The main allusion we find here is the idea that the actions of the American soldiers also caused the death of innocent people but that because they were on the winning side, this is not mentioned as often as the deaths caused by the Nazi regime.

The most important image is that of Anton's house burning down. Anton watches this scene from afar, knowing his dead family is laying inside. This image is extremely important because it has the purpose of showing just how ruthless the Nazis were.

One of the main paradoxical ideas is the fact that Anton is blamed by Fake for his father's death even though Fake's involvement with the anti-communist party was the reason why Anton's parents were killed even though they had no involvement whatsoever.

A parallel is drawn between the communist supporters and the fascist supporters who emerged after the end of the war. This parallel is an extremely important one because it transmits the idea that even though these groups believe they are different, they are more or less the same.

The pocket knife mentioned by Cor Takes is used here as a general term through which the narrator makes reference to the lengths to which a person is willing to go just to fight for what she or he believed to be right.

We have a personification in the line "as the grave filled with dirt, it demanded the attention of everyone who was present".