Annie John Literary Elements

Fiction

Antigua during the post-colonial period.

The narrator is Annie; she narrates her life in the first person from when she was a little girl to a young lady. Annie holds the view that life should be simple and fun.

The novel has a playful mood and an animated tone especially when Annie narrates of her mischief for example playing rounders when they were supposed to be walking.

The novel does not not have any clear protagonists and antagonists because it takes the form of an autobiography.

The major conflict in the novel is the loss of love between Annie and her mother. This happened when she was a teenager and they were at loggerheads. Annie wanted to do things a certain way whereas her mother often disapproved.

The climax is arrived at when Annie leaves Antigua for England where she was going to study to become a nurse. She vowed that she would never return to Antigua.

Annie's mother had told her that one day she(Annie) would grow up and have a house of her own. This happens when Annie leaves Antigua for England to start a new life.

Annie said that being made a prefect was a mistake. This is an understatement because it was catastrophic for she was often the one who came up with mischief that the other girls of her class engaged in.

Biblical allusion at the time when Annie saw a picture of Lucifer being cast out of heaven. She compared herself to him for she had once been the apple of her mother's eye but recently she had become badly behaved and her relationship with her mother was broken.

There's imagery when Annie describes Miss Nelson as, 'She wore her ironed hair and her long-sleeved blouse and box-pleated skirt.' This statement contains imagery because of the use of adjectives such as colors and shapes to describe Miss Nelson's outfit.

Annie says that her mother told her that she should not be proud of her accomplishments and in the next breath tells her that she should be proud of them.

There's parallelism when the relationship between Annie and her mother when she was a little girl where they did everything together and she was the apple of her mother's eye is compared to when she was a teenager and they were always at loggerheads with each other.

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