Reading in the Dark Literary Elements

Reading in the Dark Literary Elements

Genre

Novel

Setting and Context

Ireland. Twentieth-century

Narrator and Point of View

First-person narrator

Tone and Mood

Fantasy, comical, mystifying, and exhilarating

Protagonist and Antagonist

An Irish boy (the narrator) is the protagonist. Irish Liberation Army (IRA) is the antagonist.

Major Conflict

The Irish boy’s quest to disentangle his family’s history in the backdrop of religious fallacies, fear, and mistrust.

Climax

Uncle Eddie’s ill-fated expiration that is attributed to the IRA.

Foreshadowing

N/A

Understatement

The narrator understates the winter coldness of 1947 by associating it with paradise.

Allusions

Religious allusions permeate Deane’s novel.
Deane alludes to fairy tales.

Imagery

Police are depicted as vicious and homicidal due to their supposed participation in Eddie's demise. Protests create images of the police versus private citizens.
Perceptions of apparitions accentuate the omnipresence of superstitions in the household.

Paradox

The title "Reading in the Dark" is paradoxical because light is essential for one to read.

Parallelism

N/A

Metonymy and Synecdoche

‘The devil’ denotes ill-lack or jinxes.

Personification

The house is personified.

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