Genre
Dystopian novel
Setting and Context
Set in a dystopian US town
Narrator and Point of View
Third-person narrative
Tone and Mood
The tone is candid, and the mood is ominous.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The central character is Thurwar, and the antagonist is the American corporate entities sponsoring CAPE games.
Major Conflict
The major conflict is between Black inmates and the US prison authorities that treat them inhumanely and discriminatively.
Climax
The climax comes when Thurwar wins her competition and moves to the last stage to get her freedom.
Foreshadowing
Loretta Thurwar’s previous bloody fights foreshadow her freedom.
Understatement
Melancholia Bishop downplays the power of Thurwar in the upcoming competition.
Allusions
N/A
Imagery
The narrator describes the crowd's commemorative ambience when Loretta enters the field to paint a picture of exceptional experiences and adulation from the fans. The narrator says, "Thurwar smiled at the thought and slowed a bit so she was shoulder to shoulder with Staxxx and rubbed into her side, her shoulder poking into Staxxx’s exposed armpit. The crowd, seeing this, screamed anew.”
Paradox
The primary paradox in the novel is that the corporate entities justify the bloody deaths during CAPE completion arguing that it is one of the best ways to get rid of hardcore criminals. On the contrary, such killings are a violation of human rights.
Parallelism
There is a parallelism between Melancholia’s confidence to defeat Loretta and the crowd’s commemorative idea that Loretta has already won the competition.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
n/a
Personification
Corporate entities are personified as evil because they benefit from human blood.
