Genre
Short story collection
Setting and Context
The time is the beginning of the 21st century, America
Narrator and Point of View
It is first-person narration, and the narrator is the author .
Tone and Mood
The tone is intense, as it goes about the narrator’s becoming deaf and other serious health problems. In the end, the tests conducted on the narrator’s body and brains in particular showed that he was healthy.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonist is the narrator, while the antagonist is his illness.
Major Conflict
The main conflict is exposed through the problems of identification among Native Americans.
Climax
The climax comes when the narrator’s wife comes home from Italy, since with her return the narrator started to feel better.
Foreshadowing
The appearance of so many medical terms foreshadows that many events are connected with health issues.
Understatement
N/A
Allusions
There is an allusion to Iraq wars; the doctor who treated the narrator had served in both the wars.
Another vivid allusion refers to action on Okinawa in 1945.
Imagery
The images of everyday life of the narrator are given, as well as the images of hospitalization and health care.
Paradox
N/A
Parallelism
All the stories are built on two parallels. The first one reveals the narrator’s life of today, his problems with health; the other parallel concerns his relationship with his father and his father’s death.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
“a part-time blue-collar construction worker” (the narrator called his father this way)
Personification
“his voice cracked and wavered”
“Our voices filled the recovery hallway”
“The bed was killing my back”
