Literary Devices in A Hologram for the King
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Setting
Hot, Hot HeatDesert, guys. Hot, sandy, never-ending desert. And Alan Clay isn't the kind of guy who dreams about retiring to Arizona and becoming a desert rat. The dude is not impressed with the vi...
Narrator Point of View
We're pretty solidly stuck in Alan Clay's tortured little brain for most of this work, but Eggers does occasionally give insight into the minds of other characters. But these moments are as rare an...
Genre
Alan is no Don Quixote or Roland or Galahad— he's not even Bilbo Baggins—but he's definitely on a journey to seek his fortune and reclaim his place in the world. And as far as we're concerned,...
Tone
We're sorry to break it to you, but this is a sad, sad book. Guys, the New York Times called it "a kind of Death of a Globalized Salesman." And if there's anything sadder than Death of a Salesman,...
Writing Style
It's not surprising that the story of a failed salesman would bring us way, way down on the happy scale. But Eggers has such a lovely, poetic way of doing it, we hardly mind. Check out this passage...
What's Up With the Title?
Alan journeys to KAEC to sell holographic conferencing technology (that's the A Hologram part) to King Abdullah for his new city (that's the For The King part). And Alan's super excited, because a)...
What's Up With the Epigraph?
EPIGRAPH: "It is not every day that we are needed." (Samuel Beckett)Eggers takes this line from Samuel Beckett's crazy-influential play Waiting for Godot. In this play, two characters called Didi a...
What's Up With the Ending?
If you feel deeply dissatisfied with the ending of this work, your instincts are spot on. For one thing, we've spent over thirty chapters waiting for King Abdullah…and he's in the book for a page...
Tough-o-Meter
Eggers might use a poetic turn of phrase here and there, but his prose is always straightforward and highly readable. And the same is true for the structure and form of the work: there's nothing wo...
Plot Analysis
The Journey of His Life (No Pressure)Alan finds himself at the lowest point in his life. He heads out to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, as part of team from Boston-based IT firm Reliant, hoping to nab a mas...
Booker's Seven Basic Plots Analysis
The CallAlan finds that his life in the U.S. isn't financially or psychologically viable, so he picks up a gig with an IT firm called Reliant to work in Saudi Arabia for a bit. He hopes to seek his...
Three-Act Plot Analysis
Act IAlan arrives in Jeddah and assesses the situation at KAEC. He has a hard time getting a read on cultural expectations…and even greater difficulty finding out when the king might arrive.Act I...
Trivia
Eggers tells one story about the glass used to build Freedom Tower. Here's a real life glass snafu that cost the developers a pretty good chunk o' change. (Source) Eggers set up a tutoring project...
Steaminess Rating
Eggers has no problem sharing TMI about Alan's sex life/attempted sex life/total failure of a sex life. While Alan struggles with low sex drive throughout the novel, there's always the past to reme...
Allusions
Transcendentalism Brook Farm Fourth Industrial Revolution King Abdullah F.W. de Klerk Deepwater Horizon (BP) Oil Spill, or Gulf Oil Spill, 2010 Mikhail Gorbachev Khmer Rouge Hitler Youth IMF (Inter...