Genre
Satire
Setting and Context
The events of the story take place in London. The time period is 1938-1939.
Narrator and Point of View
George Bowling is a narrator. His story is written from the first-person point of view.
Tone and Mood
George’s tone varies from nostalgic to sarcastic. Mood is grim.
Protagonist and Antagonist
George Bowling is a protagonist of the story. Time and capitalism are the antagonists.
Major Conflict
The major conflict is person vs. self. George can’t accept some changes that happen on a daily basis.
Climax
The climax is an episode when George finds out that the estate where he liked fishing is built over.
Foreshadowing
Everyone that isn’t scared stiff of losing his job is scared stiff of war.
This sentence foreshadows future development of events.
Understatement
Do you know the road I live in – Ellesmere Road, West Bletchley? Even if you don’t, you know fifty others exactly like it.
Allusions
The story alludes to the Second Boer War, Hitler, and the Soviet Union.
Imagery
See the Imagery Section
Paradox
No woman, I thought as I worked the soap round my belly, will ever look twice at me again, unless she is paid to. Not that at that moment I particularly wanted any woman to look twice at me.
Parallelism
Odds and ends.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
There was a big social distinction between the shopkeepers’ son and sons of labourers and farm-hands. (Farm-hands are synecdoche that means farm helpers.)
They had the good old English notions that the red-coats are the scum of the earth. (Red-coats are metonymy that means soldiers.)
Personification
It was a beastly January morning.
