The Casual Vacancy Literary Elements

The Casual Vacancy Literary Elements

Genre

Fiction, tragic comedy

Setting and Context

Present-day Pagford, a town in the South West of England

Narrator and Point of View

A third person, unnamed omniscient narrator.

Tone and Mood

The tone is of conflict and tension, the mood is passionate and captivating.

Protagonist and Antagonist

Mary Fairbrother is the protagonist, The Fields are the antagonists.

Major Conflict

The major conflict of the novel occurs when Barry Fairbrother dies in the car park at a golf course, as the book explores the impact it has on each of the characters involved.

Climax

The climax is reached when Krystal's social worker, Kay, intervenes and tries to turn her mother's life around by getting her off her heroin addiction.

Foreshadowing

Krystal's addiction to heroin is foreshadowed by her mother being an addict herself, which pushes Krystal into drug abuse and addiction.

Understatement

The effect of the hacked online forum on Mary Fairbrother is an example of understatement in the novel.

Allusions

The novel alludes to the societal issues of prostitution and drug abuse, through the eyes of many of the book's characters.

Imagery

The image of Barry's death and collapse is a particularly strong image that runs throughout the novel as it deeply affects Krystal, as well as the Mollison family.

Paradox

Kay's attempt at helping Terri recover from her drug addiction is paradoxical as Krystal, Terri's daughter, relapses as a result of the lack of attention on her.

Parallelism

N/A

Metonymy and Synecdoche

N/A

Personification

During one of Terri's drug episodes, the heroin is personified, as if Terri is becoming the heroin due to her reliance on it and her nature to draw others in.

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