When Breath Becomes Air Literary Elements

Biographical, Non-fiction

The United States at a hospital where Paul Kalanithi was a neurosurgery resident.

The narrator is Paul Kalanithi. He narrates in the first person. Paul holds the view that doctors should be compassionate to their patients.

The tone is nostalgic especially in the later chapters where Paul is diagnosed with cancer and his thoughts wander to the time when he was a resident. The mood is sombre for Paul was a good resident and as he was almost done with residency, he was diagnosed with cancer which had low survival rates.

The protagonist is Paul for he is the doctor who seeks to find the meaning of life and is compassionate towards his patients. There is not antagonist for the novel is a biographical one.

The major conflict in the novel is the path to be a good doctor despite the internal pressure and external pressures in the medical field. Paul struggles through all these pressures internal being guilt for mistakes or wrong judgment and external ones being the huge workload.

Paul wades through the internal and external struggles and becomes a good doctor who is both compassionate to his patients and committed to his work.

Leo who was Paul's friend in Kingman said that if his friend Paul went to Yale, Harvard or Stanford then he would too and he was admitted to the University of Yale.

Paul when he was diagnosed with cancer says that his life was building potential. This is an understatement because he was a gifted and committed doctor to his patients.

Biblical allusion to the creation. This was when Paul was at a summer camp and he noticed that there was this moment where it was both day and night. At that moment, he wondered whether it was at that time that God had said, ' Let there be light.'

The description of Dr. Emma by the narrator as, ' The door opened and in she walked, her white coats showing the wear of a long day but her smile fresh.' The narrator used adjectives such a s 'white' to describe her attire and they build imagery.

The narrator builds a paradoxical moment when he was at summer camp where he said that at the moment, it was both day and night. This is paradoxical because they cannot occur at the same time.

A parallel is drawn between the narrator and his friend Jeff when Jeff committed suicide because he could not bear the guilt of having lost a patient. This is in contrast to the narrator who was able to bear his guilt and forge forward.

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