Perspectives

Literary period

Ron Butlin’s short story “The German Boy” is part of the postmodernist literary movement. This movement experienced a rise in the post-World War II era and gained popularity throughout the late 20th century. The story was published in 1982 when Postmodernism was popular and used by many authors. Postmodernist works can be recognised through themes, context, and narrative techniques.

In the short story “The German Boy,” Ron Butlin describes a post-World War II society, which matches a postmodernist context. In terms of postmodernist narrative techniques, “The German Boy” focuses on the narrator’s perception of the world around him and translates his psychological reality into symbolic actions. The subjective first-person viewpoint gives readers access to the narrator’s inner thoughts.

The story also features temporal distortion. The sequence of events from the narrator’s childh...