Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch Literary Elements

Comedy, fantasy

England, mostly in Tadfield (a fictional town where Adam Young, the Antichrist) lives.

Third-person omniscient narration, which allows the reader to more easily grasp the web of characters.

Dry, witty, philosophical, satirical

The protagonists of the story are essentially all of the characters that oppose the destruction of Earth, however Adam Young is the main protagonist, and the Four Horsemen (as well as Satan, who they are working for) are the antagonists.

The major conflict of the novel is between the protagonists, who believe that Earth should not be destroyed, and the Four Horsemen, who desperately want to bring about the apocalypse.

The climax of the novel is near the very end, when Adam saves the world from Satan's final uprising.

There is much foreshadowing weaved into the entire text, in Agnes Nutter's book, which predicts the novel's entire events. For example, Anathema already knows that Newt is going to turn up at her house, and is completely prepared for him when he comes; all because of Agnes Nutter’s book.

Page 39: ‘That Hieronymous Bosch. What a weirdo.’

The entire novel features many allusions to the Bible; for example, the beginning of the book features the retold events of the Garden of Eden, and near the end of the novel on page 410, Adam eating the apple alludes to the original Adam from the Bible.

Page 337: ‘[R.P. Tyler] stared up at the storm clouds. They were banked up high, in towering piles of smudged grey and black. It wasn’t just the flickering tongues of lightning that forked through them like the opening sequence of a Frankenstein movie; it was the way they stopped when they reached the borders of Lower Tadfield. And in their centre was a circular patch of daylight; but the light had a stretched, yellow quality to it, like a forced smile.”

Aziraphale and Crowley are paradoxes in themselves; their personalities both completely contradict their roles as respective angel and demon. Crowley, while slightly mischievous, is not evil at all, and Aziraphale, while a fussy stickler for rules, is not completely good either. Therefore, their roles and personalities are paradoxes.

As stated before, Good Omens draws many parallels with the Bible, and in fact retells many of its events, such as the Garden of Eden.

The bikes of the Horsemen, while they are partly a metaphor, are a synecdoche for their horses.

Page 272: ‘She rode a red motorbike. Not a friendly Honda red; a deep, bloody red, rich and dark and hateful.’