Beginners Literary Elements

Beginners Literary Elements

Genre

short stories, fiction

Setting and Context

The short story Where is Everyone? is set at a time when Cynthia and the narrator’s marriage was failing and the place is an unnamed suburban town.

Narrator and Point of View

The narrators of all the stories are in the first person and they address various issues in their lives. In the story of Where is Everyone? the narrator is a husband who is frustrated by his rude children and his wife's extramarital affair.

Tone and Mood

The story, Where is Everyone? has a resigned tone for the narrator is resigned about the failure of his marriage and the mood is melancholy.

Protagonist and Antagonist

The story Where is Everyone? has no clear protagonists and antagonists.

Major Conflict

The major conflict in the story, Where is Everyone? is the failing marriage between the narrator and his wife Cynthia. The marriage failed because of the affair that Cynthia had with Ross, a handyman and the alcoholism of the couple.

Climax

The climax of the story Where is Everyone? is reached at the end of the story where the narrator is resigned that his marriage had failed and he had failed to ditch his alcohol addiction.

Foreshadowing

The narrator of the story Where is Everyone? said that his daughter Kate had no loyalty to him or the family and would gladly sell them down the river. Later in the story the daughter and the son told their grandmother about the narrator's failing marriage that he wanted to keep under wraps.

Understatement

The narrator understated how much he disliked his children by saying that he had set his heart against them. He hated them so much that he wanted to slap them on his death bed. The narrator is of the story Where is Everyone?

Allusions

The narrator of the story Where is Everyone? alludes to the Italian novelist Italo Svevo when he said that one of the novel's works features a father who was so frustrated by his son that he slapped him on his (the father's) death bed. The narrator vowed to slap his children on his death bed as well because of how they had caused him pain.

Imagery

In the story Gazebo, the narrator and his wife visited a farmhouse that they described as , 'We came to those orchards and the we were on a little dirt road and it was so hot and dusty. We were going and we came into an old farmhouse.’

Paradox

In the story Where is Everyone? the narrator detested Ross who was his wife's lover but also wished him well in life.

Parallelism

The narrator of the story Where is Everyone? draws a parallel between how his wife Cynthia treated him to how she treated her lover Ross. Cynthia was more loving towards Ross for she would clean his house and cook for him and bail him from jail. She would take money from her household and give it to Ross.

Metonymy and Synecdoche

N/A

Personification

N/A

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