Genre
Philosophical
Setting and Context
19th Century
Narrator and Point of View
Narrator A and Narrator B.
Tone and Mood
Thoughtful, sarcastic, moralistic, self-indulgent, meditative, and artistic.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The narrators are both the protagonists and the antagonists.
Major Conflict
Reconciliation of aesthetics with morals.
Climax
The Seducer’s abandonment of Cordelia at the climax of their affair.
Foreshadowing
N/A
Understatement
The term fragment understates the completeness of life. The title hints at the protagonist’s struggles to experience fulfillment in life.
Allusions
Allusion to art such as poems and Mozart.
Biblical and philosophical allusions.
Imagery
The Seducer is self-centred and cunning.
Paradox
N/A.
Parallelism
Principles of hedonism and paralleled to the principles of ethics.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
Either/Or denotes a dilemma.
Personification
The Old Testament is personified.
