Genre
Utopian Fiction
Setting and Context
19th- and 21st-century England
Narrator and Point of View
Chapter 1 is told in the first person by a friend of the main character. He then tells the story from Chapters 2 - 32 in the first person as if he is the main character, William.
Tone and Mood
Critical, serious
Protagonist and Antagonist
Protagonist - William
Major Conflict
William comes to love life in the 21st century, but does not know whether he will be able to stay there.
Climax
On the night that William, Dick, Clara, and Ellen reach the village where they are supposed to help with the harvest, his new friends suddenly stop being able to see William. As he leaves the church where they are eating dinner, a black cloud comes toward him until he cannot see or tell whether he is standing. He wakes up back in the 19th century.
Foreshadowing
William foreshadows the question of whether he will be able to stay in the 21st century or will return to the 19th century soon, which eventually happens in the last chapter of the book by thinking about it before bed and catching glimpses of the past at various moments in the story.
Understatement
N/A
Allusions
William makes allusions to authors such as Charles Dickens as well as figures from the Socialist Movement such as François Marie Charles Fourier.
Imagery
The narrator describes 21st-century in England in great detail, especially architecture and nature.
Paradox
N/A
Parallelism
N/A
Metonymy and Synecdoche
N/A
Personification
N/A
