Genre
Novel
Setting and Context
Written in the context of racism, grief and identity
Narrator and Point of View
First-person narrative
Tone and Mood
The tone is candid, and the mood is reflective.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The central character is the narrator.
Major Conflict
The main conflict is when the narrator is caught sleeping with a married woman in a hotel by the woman's husband. The narrator is forced to run around the hotel naked, trying to escape.
Climax
The climax came when the narrator and a black boy called Soot walk together on a self-discovery journey.
Foreshadowing
The killing of the black boy by the white policeman is foreshadowed by racism and ill-treatment against blacks in the United States of America.
Understatement
The protagonist's immorality is understated. After being caught sleeping with a married woman, he starts sexually eyeing the receptionist again.
Allusions
The story alludes to the evils of racism against black people.
Imagery
Sight imagery is depicted when the narrator describes the black back called 'Soot' because of his dark cooler.
Paradox
The main paradox is that the narrator runs naked in the hotel while escaping from the husband of his concubine.
Parallelism
There is parallelism between the ill-treatment of the blacks and the narrator's low esteem.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
N/A
Personification
Bigotry is incarnated as a monster.
