Genre
science fiction, fantasy
Setting and Context
futuristic dystopian USA
Narrator and Point of View
Narrator: omniscient
Point of view: third person
Tone and Mood
Nightmarish, suspenseful
Protagonist and Antagonist
Protagonist: the main protagonist is Amy, a hundred-year-old woman who was a test subject of the project NOAH; Antagonist: Horace Guilder, the twelve original virals
Major Conflict
A hundred years after the outbreak of the viral infection as a product of lab experiment gone wrong, the humanity is on a brink of extinction. The main protagonists from the first novel found themselves facing new challenges: Amy going through a transformation that is a part of her destiny connected to the other virals, Alicia coping with her new identity, Peter realizing the shackles of his newfound duty, and Sara becoming a part of a new community while her friends assume her dead.
Climax
Amy gets intentionally captured by Guilder in Homeland, to go through her final transformation to be able to fight the rest of the original virals. Despite her efforts, it is Lila who delivers the final blow by igniting the fire in the lab underneath the stadium, to end her and Lawrence's suffering.
Foreshadowing
"Somewhere in the body of Lawrence Grey lay the secret to the ultimate freedom, and Horace Guilder would find it, and take it for his own."
-foreshadowing of Guilder gaining immortality from Grey and exploiting his body
Understatement
"His father's face was just the same; it was as if his passage into death represented only the subtlest alteration in his condition."
-Horace Guilder, murdering his father and justifying it
Allusions
"Emily Dickinson: a boy of eight, he had found a book of her poems in the Kerrville Library, in a room nobody ever went to."
Imagery
Visual imagery of virals: deformed creatures with a semblance to their human form, but with claws and sharp teeth.
Paradox
"And always the paradox: the person standing before him, though to all appearances a young teenager, was in reality the oldest human being on earth."
-referring to Amy
Parallelism
"Who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I who am I?"
-what Amy hears when listening to other virals, showing their battle withing themselves and their confusion.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
"Their Many"-referring to the viral groups that belong to each individual original viral of the twelve.
Personification
Alicia's horse Soldier-a personified presence guarding her with a mind of its own, instead of a simple horse
