Genre
History, Biography
Setting and Context
Victorian England
Narrator and Point of View
The author is the narrator and the book is written from his point of view.
Tone and Mood
Cynical and honest
Protagonist and Antagonist
The author is the protagonist. The reputations of the key figures profiled in the book is the antagonist.
Major Conflict
The Crimean War is the major conflict of the time that is the backdrop to much of the character detail in the book.
Climax
Each person profiled has a climax to their own story; there is no specific climax to the book itself. For example, the climax of Cardinal Manning’s story is his defection to Catholicism.
Foreshadowing
Gordon’s refusal to withdraw in Khartoum foreshadows the siege that follows and the disaster that occurs from a British military standpoint.
Understatement
The author calls Gordon a maverick which, whilst accurate, also understated the complete disregard for military strategy that he shows when actually in the midst of a battle.
Allusions
The author alludes to the political situations of the day, specifically regarding the Prime Minister, William Gladstone, and his policy objectives.
Imagery
Much of the imagery involves describing the Front in the Crimean war and in the case of Florence Nightingale the reader is able to picture, but also imagine the sounds and smells, of the field hospital in which she was working.
Paradox
The Victorians portrayed themselves as the bastions if moral propriety but the author shows that they were actually anything but.
Parallelism
There is a parallel between the way in which each character’s reputation shows them as heroic and noble when in fact they all had major flaws in their character that negatively impacted those around them.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
The Victorians is used to describe the subjects of the book and uses the monarch on the throne during their lifetimes to sum them up as a group.
Personification
N/A
