"The Stolen Bacillus" and Other Stories Literary Elements

"The Stolen Bacillus" and Other Stories Literary Elements

Genre

A short story

Setting and Context

The place is London, while the time is not mentioned.

Narrator and Point of View

Third-person narration

Tone and Mood

The tone is both worrying and funny. The worrying is provoked by the possibility that the stranger might poison London’s river with the bacteria of cholera which would be followed by many deaths. The funny mood of the story is represented in the very end when the bacteriologist says what really was in the tube the stranger had stolen.

Protagonist and Antagonist

The protagonist is the bacteriologist, and the antagonist is the visitor.

Major Conflict

People sometimes forget that they are not omnipotent, and death might be right after the corner, or in a glass of water; thus the conflict stands in realizing how really miserable people are comparing with nature.

Climax

The climax comes when the visitor breaks the tube and its contents are poured on him.

Foreshadowing

That the visitor had stolen the tube with living bacteria of cholera (at least he thought so) foreshadowed big troubles for the citizens.

Understatement

N/A

Allusions

The story alludes to famous French anarchists – Ravachol and Vaillant.

Imagery

The imagery is used in descriptions of appearances.

Paradox

N/A

Parallelism

The pale-faced man nodded. His eyes shone. He cleared his throat.

Metonymy and Synecdoche

“Yes dear,” came a remote voice (a remote voice is metonymy for Minnie – the bacteriologist’s wife)

Personification

“He would wait ready to be drunk in the horse-troughs, and by unwary children in the public fountains; he would soak into the soil, to reappear in springs and wells at a thousand unexpected places” (he is personification for the bacteria of cholera)

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