Genre
Futuristic novel
Setting and Context
The novel is set after World War II after a Nazi German victory. Consequently the Germans rule the world.
Narrator and Point of View
The point of view is that of Alfred, an Englishman who thinks that Hitler is a fraud and that the world has been duped into worshipping him as a god.
Tone and Mood
Threatening and hopeless
Protagonist and Antagonist
Alfred is the protagoist, the German Nazi regime the antagonists.
Major Conflict
The major conflict mentioned in the novel was World War II which has finished at the start of the novel but is still the catalyst for everything that happens within it
Climax
Alfred tells his son to carry on trying to tell the world that Hitler is just a man and not a god at all.
Foreshadowing
Being found with the book foreshadows the Nazi soldiers' treatment of Hermann and Alfred.
Understatement
Alfred says that Hitler does not look like a god which is an understatement because he does not even look like the kind of Germanic master-race man that he himself espoused the promotion of.
Allusions
The novel alludes to Kristalnacht and the burning of books that disagreed with anything that the Nazis said.
Imagery
The imagery is very dark and threatening. It also conjures up retrospective pictures for the modern reader in that we are able to picture the overly militaristic presentation of Nazism that represented Hitler's own self-indulgence.
Paradox
Hitler's master race was tall, blonde and blue eyed, despite the fact that Hitler himself was short, paunchy and dark haired.
Parallelism
There is a parallel between the author's fictional account of what the Nazi regime would be like and what it actually was like, in terms of policing the thoughts of its people.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
The Nazis is the term used to encompass the entire membership of the German government
Personification
N/A
