Literary Devices in The View from Saturday
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Setting
Sillington House is an old farmhouse in Clarion County, the county where Epiphany is located. And boy, is it old:It is a huge old farmhouse that has had so many add-ons it looks like a cluster of s...
Narrator Point of View
The View from Saturday is told in Third Person (Omniscient)—except when it's told in Third Person (Limited Omniscient). Oh, and First Person (Central Narrator). Times four. Basically, The View f...
Genre
No question here. Four of the book's main characters are kids; the big suspense item is a statewide middle school Academic Bowl; the characters' conflicts involve moving to a new place, dealing wit...
Tone
Let's sum it up with this little piece of Mrs. Olinski's voice:Mrs. Olinski gave up. Everyone believed that she could be wounded by the word cripple. She could never explain to Dr. Rohmer, nor woul...
Writing Style
The View from Saturday doesn't start us off easy. The fact was that Mrs. Olinski did not know how she had chosen her team, and the further fact was that she didn't know that she didn't know until s...
What's Up With the Title?
Workin' for the Weekend. "9-5." "Last Friday Night." We could go on. The point is, everyone loves the weekend. And, well, who wouldn't? If you're like most people, you're either (1) in school, or (...
What's Up With the Ending?
Look, it's not like there's much suspense here. We don't know for sure that The Souls are going to win, but we're not exactly biting our nails over it. It's not that the underdogs never lose, but t...
Tough-o-Meter
This book is full of smart people saying smart things and challenging themselves to be even smarter, and we don't just mean book-larnin'. After all, the main stakes here are at an academic competit...
Plot Analysis
The Final CountdownMost initial situations start with the beginning of the story. As Lewis Carroll wrote in The View from Saturday's favorite book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, "Begin at the b...
Trivia
Konigsburg's favorite piece of advice: "Before you can be anything, you have to be yourself. That's the hardest thing to find." (Source.)Konigsburg is the only author ever to double down on Newbery...
Allusions
T.S. Eliot ("Noah Writes a B & B Letter".30) Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (2.4; "Ethan Explains the B and B Inn".89, 91, 161, 210; 10.10, 12; 11.27, 34, 36, 41)National Geographic ("Nadia...