Genre
A novel
Setting and Context
The main story covers the course of four days. The events take place mostly in New York. The time period is 2000s.
Narrator and Point of View
The story is told from the first-person point of view by an unnamed narrator. He is a thirty-five-year-old black man who suffers from an inferiority complex.
Tone and Mood
The tone is thoughtful and the mood is melancholic.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The unnamed narrator is the protagonist of the story. An inferiority complex is the antagonist.
Major Conflict
The major conflict is person vs. self. The protagonist has to believe that he is worthy of happiness.
Climax
His meeting with his family in the end of the story is the climax.
Foreshadowing
He’s probably learned of my drinking problem through the neighborhood gossip channels, but he’s never confirmed any of it with me.
The protagonist mentions his drinking problem in the beginning of the novel. It is also known that he is broke.
Understatement
“How did you break your nose all those times?”
“Sports and stuff.”
This is an underestimation. The narrator doesn’t want to tell his son about all the troubles he has been through. This is the reason why he gives such an evasive reply.
Allusions
“Many Thousands Gone” by James Baldwin, “The Emperor Wears No Clothes” by Jack Herer
Imagery
See imagery section
Paradox
Brooklyn in not the Brooklyn I imagined while in Boston, or Manhattan, or even Brooklyn.
Parallelism
I run and think, or I think and run.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
You got wheels? (Wheels are metonymy that denotes a car.)
I think I gave you silver. (Silver is synecdoche that means forks, knives, and spoons made from silver.)
Personification
The cold was creeping into the car.
