To Paradise Literary Elements

Historical Fiction

Set in 1893, 1993, and 2093 in New York, America

Third-person narration

Distressing, Horrific, Mysterious, Emotional

The protagonist is David and Charlie of each timeline while the antagonist is social issues and pressures that curb the specific timeline.

The conflicts in the three narratives mimic each other in terms of the protagonist’s resolve. The protagonist has to make a choice in their lives between living a life of order and safety and that of risk and exhilaration.

The climax in the novel is not apparent.

The social problems in the initial stories foreshadow the issues in the future society.

N/A

The first narrative alludes to the human rights of minority races and queer people. The 1993 story refers it the AIDs epidemic that ravaged the nations while the third narrative alludes to global pandemics and plagues.

“Winter would be upon them soon, and he had worn only his light coat, but nevertheless, he kept going, crossing his arms snug against his chest and turning up his lapels. Even after the bells rang five, he put his head down and continued moving forward, and it wasn’t until he had finished his fifth circumnavigation that he turned, sighing, to walk north on one of the paths to the house, and up its neat stone steps, with the door opening for him before he reached the top…”

N/A

“…the first depicting his great-great-great-grandfather, Ezra, the war hero, distinguishing himself in the battle for independence from Britain; the second, his great-great-grandfather, Edmund, marching northward with some of his fellow Utopians from Virginia to New York to found what would become known as the Free States; the third, his great-grandfather, Hiram, whom he had never known, founding Bingham Brothers and being elected mayor of New York.”

“A daguerreotype of a handsome man with a knowing smile and a hat tipped rakishly on his head”

“…the air cleansed of its grit, the breezes gentle.”