Literary Devices in The Borrowers
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Setting
The Borrowers takes place during the very late 1800s or early 1900's—a time when Great Britain was a huge world power with a vast empire that stretched all the way to India and beyond. So if you...
Narrator Point of View
For a seemingly simple book, there sure are a lot of narrators in The Borrowers. Let's untangle.BeginningFirst off, we get the original narrator, who is never named (although we might suspect it is...
Genre
FantasylandAny novel that involves teensy folks living below the floorboards and stealing stuff from humans has got to be a fantasy. Clearly the laws of physics, evolution, and all that other logic...
Tone
The tone of The Borrowers is as proper as afternoon tea, as playful as a little cocker spaniel puppy, and as sympathetic as your best friend. Who wouldn't want to read a book with a tone like that?...
Writing Style
Let's jump right in and check out a scene. How about the one in which Mrs. Driver discovers the borrowers?And then she shrieked, loud and long. She saw movement: a running, a scrambling, a flutteri...
What's Up With the Title?
This title's not too tricky to suss out. The borrowers are the main characters in The Borrowers, so our title gives us a heads up on whom to root for. Duh.But beyond that, it also points to a key q...
What's Up With the Ending?
The story of The Borrowers ends so suddenly that even Kate, the little girl to whom Mrs. May tells the story, can't believe it: "And that," said Mrs. May, laying down her crochet hook, "is really t...
Tough-o-Meter
No tough read here. The most challenging thing about The Borrowers is that it is set in a different time period, back in the olden days of the early 1900s, so you might not be familiar with such ev...
Plot Analysis
Dude, Where's My Crochet Hook?Kate and Mrs. May are making a quilt when Kate notices her crochet hook is missing, and that can only mean one thing: the house must be full of Borrowers. And so beg...
Trivia
Author Mary Norton was raised in a Georgian manor house in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire… hey wait, that sounds familiar. Sure enough, this locale is written into The Borrowers. Remember that cl...
Allusions
Bryce, Tom Thumb Gazetteer of the World (2.12) Bryce, Tom Thumb Dictionary (2.12)Bryce, Tom Thumb Edition of the Comedies of William Shakespeare (2.12)Bryce, Tom Thumb Diary and Proverb Book (2.12)...