To Say Nothing of the Dog Literary Elements

Science Fiction / Fantasy Fiction

This novel is set in Oxford in the mid-21st century and back in time in the 20th century and Victorian era.

The novel is narrated in first-person from the perspective of Ned Henry

The tone is humorous yet slightly distressed and the mood is light-hearted.

The protagonist of the novel is Ned Henry while the antagonist is time travel incongruities and the time lag he experiences during the jumps.

Lady Schrapnell has financed an excursion into the past through time travel to be taken by a group of historians. The mission is to retrieve a Bishop's bird stump however the rules of the space-time continuum make the endeavor much more complicated for the time travelers.

The climax happens when the ripple effects send the characters through history and momentarily end up in the Blitz shortly before the destruction of the cathedral.

“Bringing an object forward through time would create a parachronistic incongruity. At best, the incongruity might result in increased slippage.”

This foreshadows the time slippage that occurs once the cat is brought back into the future.

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The novel is inspired by the “Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog)” by Jerome K. Jerome alluding to the humor, characters, and setting. Akin to the account the novel involves a journey through River Thames taken by Ned, Tossie, Professor Peddick, and a dog. Additionally, the major conflict in the story involves the Coventry Cathedral that was bombed in the Second World War during the Coventry Blitz.

“The Victorian era. Long dreamy afternoons boating on the Thames, playing croquet on emerald lawns with girls in white frocks, and fluttering hair ribbons. And later, tea under the willow tree, served in delicate Sevres cups by bowing butlers, anxious to minister to one’s every whim, and those same girls, reading aloud from a slim volume of poetry, their voices floating like flower petals on the scented air.”

The description paints an image of Victorian England to which the main character is about to time travel.

The rules of time travel to avoid time travel incongruities create problems for the characters yet time is revealed to be self-correcting.

Through the time jumps into two other societies in the past the narrative parallels the social dynamics of the 21st century and that of the Victorian era.

“Which means I’m in charge of Wardrobe.”

Wardrobe is a metonymy for clothes.

Time is personified throughout the story.