The Baron in the Trees Literary Elements

novel, fiction

fictional place of Ombrosa, beginning of the 19th century

Narrator: Cosimo's brother, Biagio
Point of view: First person

Tone: sentimental
Mood: adventurous

Protagonist: Cosimo Antagonist: no particular antagonist in the novel

A young boy decides to rebel against his father and starts to live in the trees, refusing to touch the ground again.

Cosimo sees an air balloon overhead nearing the tree where he was taken care of by the people in town. He grabs onto the balloon and is never seen again.

"...and no Cosimo will ever walk the trees again." Chapter Thirteen

"And this too, if one analyses it, was something he had learned from his friendship with the brigand-the pleasure of making himself useful, of performing some service necessary to other people." Chapter Thirteen

-The burglar's actions are understated as a deed that was necessary to perform for the people.

Allusion to Voltaire and his works, allusions to Napoleon

Imagery of nature is prevalent and the man's relationship to the nature is explored.

"It was the love which the hunter has for living things, and which he can only express by aiming his gun at them..." Chapter Six
""My brother considers," answered I, "that anyone who wants to see the earth properly must keep himself at a necessary distance from it.""

"That necessary presence which man is for a dog and a dog for a man, never betrayed either; and though they were different from all other men and dogs in the world, they could still call themselves happy, as man and dog." Chapter Ten
"The more time passed, the less happened. The more they felt something must happen, the more the bailiffs realized they had to do something but the less they understood what it was." Chapter Twenty-Six

Cake-eater- a name for someone living in a villa, a noble

"...and the caterpillar waking, and the chrysalis opening." Chapter Ten