Breaking News Literary Elements

Adventure Book, Journalistic Account, Auto-biography, Realist Literature.

The setting of the book includes Germany, Palestine, Afghanistan, Somalia and various other countries who were coping with wars since the writer's birth in 1947 to next fifty years. The book has been written in the context of devastations that occur as a result of war.

The narrator of the book is Martin Fletcher and the book has been written from his point of view I.e. from first person's point of view.

Chaotic, Sympathetic, Pensive, Solemn.

The protagonist of the book is Martin Fletcher who performed his journalistic duties on the most horrific territories. The wars have been described as the antagonists for human beings.

The major conflict in the book is between Martin and his ambitions. He left a position in BBC just because he wanted to fulfill his passion of reporting and filming the territories where other reporters couldn't reach. He put his life on stakes and learned a lot of things about his own self by going behind and in front of the camera.

The climax in the book comes when Martin takes his first project of covering the Israel and Palestine issue. In the amidst of bullets, he covered the story and he was unafraid of everything that was happening around him.

Martin's fascination with war and thrill foreshadows his adventures in devastated territories.

The understatement in the book is that all humans share a connection but people don't understand it. They do not consider them a part of humanity residing in countries which are suffering from wars or other disasters. Another understatement in the book is that the truth is distorted by people, governments and other institutions.

There are allusions to wars, natural disasters, havocs, Afghanistan, holocaust, Palestine-Israel conflict, deprivation of homeland, armed forces, bullets, death, dead bodies, dying people, starvation, genocide, humanity, horrendous effects of war, reporting on terrifying fronts, journalism, coward journalists, bravery, truthful accounts and governments.

There are images of people suffering from horrible effects of war, the displacement of Palestinians and the occupation of their land by Israel. The author has portrayed the ongoing war in Palestine and the resulting resistance by Arab Muslims with the help of Syria and Egypt. There are also images of genocide and the wars in Afghanistan and Rhodesia. Matrin has depicted his life from being a child to a successful journalist in his memoir. He has also demonstrated his reporting and filming in the far off territories where war broke off and the journalists refused to capture the stories.

The paradox in the story is that Martin claims to show the truth to the world but his stories have been affected by his own religious and other beliefs. The stories have been tinged by his emotions. Another paradox in the story is that the Americans along with other humans consider themselves isolated from the poor nations who have been suffering from wars. The paradoxical situation in Palestine has also been demonstrated by the author. Israel displaced the Palestinians to settle the Jews which is itself a paradoxical act.

There is a parallelism between Martin's reporting and his journey towards being a sympathetic human being. As his career progressed, he got to know about the dark sides of humanity and his connection with human beings.

An example of metonymy is Martin who represents all human beings who risk their lives to tell the world about the various happenings in the world. An example of synecdoche is the issue of Palestine, which stands for the pathetic condition of Arab Muslims.

War, reporting, and death have been personified in the book.