Genre
A novel
Setting and Context
The events of the story take place on Newfoundland.
Narrator and Point of View
The story is told from the third-person point of view by an omniscient narrator.
Tone and Mood
Because of the hardship described in the story and such frightful themes as physical and emotional abuse, bullying, sex traffic, child molestation etc., the tone oscillates from sarcastic and put out on the part of the narrator and depressed on the part of a reader. The mood changes from worrying to hopeful.
Protagonist and Antagonist
Quoyle is the protagonist of the story. Tert Card is one of the main antagonists. One may say that Quoyle’s inability to protect himself is the antagonist too.
Major Conflict
A major conflict is person vs. self, for it takes Quoyle a lot of time to understand that his ancestors don’t define him and cope with his fears which are rather numerous.
Climax
Jack’s survival is the climax of the story.
Foreshadowing
HERE is an account of a few years in the life of Quoyle.
This sentence sums up what is this novel about.
Understatement
Summer’s over and his college rats go back to their holes.
The name “college rats” is supposed to show how much the students are despised. It is depicted in such a way as if they don’t do their part of work but just waste everyone’s time.
Allusions
The novel alludes to the Bible, the Iliad and Adolf Hitler.
Imagery
There is an imagery of water.
Paradox
There was nothing about him she could stand.
Then, why did she marry him?
Parallelism
Terra Nova grieving, for hearts that are leaving.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
Mercalia had thrown down her thesis, he said, had gone blue collar. (A blue-collar is metonymy that stands for a working class person.)
And Capsize Cove is dead. (This is example of synecdoche for the name of the town stands for every living soul in it.)
Personification
She dies just any old place. She stands for a car.
