A History of the World in 10 1/2 chapters Literary Elements

Collection of short stories

The action described in the short stories takes place in the distant past in various location all over the world.

The action in these stories is told from the perspective of a third-person objective point of view.

The tone and mood in these stories is a neutral one.

The protagonist in the first story is Noah and the antagonists are the people destroyed by the flood.

The general conflict which appears in every story is between God and the sinners.

The third story reaches its climax when the church described at the beginning of the story collapses and is destroyed completely.

The flood mentioned in the first story foreshadows the later instances in which humans will have to deal with mass destruction and pain.

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One of the main allusions found in the stories is the idea that men have a sinful nature and as such should not be held accountable for their actions.

We have important imagery in the seventh story in which a woman climbs a mountain to reach a monastery. The woman wants to do this journey so she can help her father's soul escape eternal damnation. This image is an important one because it shows just how far a person is willing to go to gain salvation.

One of the most paradoxical ideas presented in the story is that some people are creatures are destined to be destroyed from the beginning. This idea is paradoxical because God, the common character is every story is presented as having the desire to see everyone go to Heaven.

A parallel can be drawn between the woodworms and the sinners criticized by the religious authorities. This parallel is an important one because it shows how both categories are seen as being destructive and not beneficial to the world as a whole.

The woodworms mentioned in the stories are used here as a general way to make reference to the idea of destruction.

We have a personification in the fourth story in the sentence "the church grew from one day to the next".