Setting

Time setting

Ron Butlin’s short story “The German Boy” happens across two separate time periods: the narrator speaks in the present as an adult, retelling a story that happened in the past during his childhood.

The short story was published in 1982, and the setting in which the adult narrator speaks is probably meant to be read as contemporary to the time of publishing. This is indicated by references to his job as a merchant banker (an increasingly common profession in the 1980s) and to means of communication such as telephone calls and cables.

The story in the narrator’s childhood happens twenty years prior to the time of narration (p. 93, l. 10) and, therefore, should be placed in the 1960s. The narrator also mentions events that happened 10 years before the present story, while he was studying (p. 93, ll. 25-26).

The action in the narrator’s present happens during a single day, over the span of almost an hour (p. 95, l. 23). The story in his childhood encompasses events that happened on different days.

Physical setting

The story is set in an unnamed town in England. The text presents several cues about the geographical location. On his first day, Klaus stands next to a map depicting the British Empire (p. 92, ll. 25-26). The narrator states he has studied at Oxford (p. 93, l. 22), which is a university located in England, in a city bearing the same name. The narrator refers to where he works as “the City” (p. 94, ...