The Emigrants Literary Elements

The Emigrants Literary Elements

Genre

Nonfiction

Setting and Context

Set in the 20th century in the context of emigrants’ experiences

Narrator and Point of View

Third-person narrative

Tone and Mood

Sad, traumatic, horrifying, pessimistic

Protagonist and Antagonist

The central character is Winfried Georg Sebald.

Major Conflict

The main conflict is that the Nazi regime was determined to eliminate all the Jews from Germany.

Climax

The climax is when Paul Bereyter is considered a Jew enough and given a chance to serve in a Nazi Army despite being a quarter Jewish.

Foreshadowing

Selwyn's detachment from home and the inability to adapt to England's way of life foreshadowed his suicide.

Understatement

Depression is understated in the text. Bereyter and Selwyn kill themselves because they cannot accept their reality.

Allusions

The story alludes to the challenges that emigrants go through in foreign countries.

Imagery

Holocaust is one of the most dominant imagery used by the author. For instance, the author creates images of the suffering that the Jews go through under the brutal rule of the Nazi regime.

Paradox

The main paradox is that Bereyter commits suicide after having a successful career in the Nazi army.

Parallelism

The expectations of emigrants in foreign countries parallel the reality on the ground.

Metonymy and Synecdoche

N/A

Personification

The Nazi regime is personified as brutal.

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