Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil Literary Elements

Genre

Non-fiction

Setting and Context

The book describes the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961.

Narrator and Point of View

The report is written from the first-person point of view of Hannah Arendt.

Tone and Mood

Tone is focused and precise; mood is depressed and nerve-racking.

Protagonist and Antagonist

Adolf Eichmann is both the antagonist and the protagonist.

Major Conflict

The major conflict is individual vs. society. Will Eichmann admit his complicity in the crime of the Holocaust? Will this—or any "proof" of his complicity—help to explain how society could have gone so horribly astray?

Climax

The conclusion of the trial and Eichmann's execution.

Foreshadowing

As a historical report, Eichmann in Jerusalem has little foreshadowing.

Understatement

Allusions

The report alludes to the Nuremberg Trials, and the philosophy of Immanuel Kant.

Imagery

Paradox

Parallelism

Metonymy and Synecdoche

Personification

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