Genre
Collection of short stories
Setting and Context
Vietnam, Australia, the United States, Colombia, Japan, Iran
Narrator and Point of View
First-person and third-person perspectives, depending on the story.
Tone and Mood
Thoughtful, dark, and sometimes graphic.
Protagonist and Antagonist
These vary by story.
Major Conflict
Changes from story to story, but the main conflict of the stories generally concerns identity and familial relationships.
Climax
Changes from story to story. Many of the stories' climaxes involve violence or death.
Foreshadowing
Le foreshadows the final story of the collection, "The Boat," in the first story about his experiences at the Iowa Writer's Workshop.
Understatement
Both "Hiroshima" and "The Boat" are told from the perspective of children, who do not fully understand the magnitude of the historical events of which they are a part.
Allusions
N/A.
Imagery
Le uses vivid imagery to give the reader a sense of the unique settings of the stories and the experiences of the characters. He often includes graphic details about the physical bodies of characters. See the separate "Imagery" section of this ClassicNote for more details.
Paradox
In "The Boat," the narrator points out the paradox of being surrounded by water yet dying from dehydration.
Parallelism
There are parallels between the characters in many of the stories. For example, Jamie's mom and Henry are both painters who have strained relationships with their children.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
N/A.
Personification
In "Hiroshima, Mayako says that the radio is sick—when, in fact, the signal is scrambled.
