Full Title  Out of Africa

Author  Isak Dinesen

Type of work  Memoir

Genre  Mythic memoir; colonial travel literature

Language  English

Time and place written  Denmark, 1935–1936

Date of first publication  1837

Publisher  Putnam

Narrator  Baroness Karen Blixen

Point of View  First Person

Tone  Usually light and storytelling until the final section when it turns melancholic

Tense  Past tense

Setting (time)  1913–1930

Setting (place)  Near Nairobi, Kenya, Africa

Protagonist  Baroness Karen Blixen

Major conflict  The narrator's struggle to keep her coffee farm

Rising action  Attempts to grow coffee; Arrival of Old Knudsen; Hunting expeditions in Africa; Accidental shooting between boys; Visitors on the Farm

Climax  The realization that the narrator must sell her farm

Falling Action  Selling of farm; Death of Denys Finch-Hatton; Death of Chief Kinanjui; Departure from Africa

Themes  Aristocracy Africa as Paradise; Separation of the races; Aristocracy

Motifs  God; Dying at Will; Storytelling

Symbols  Lions; Old Knudsen; Lulu

Foreshadowing  Predictions of Denys' death; Statement that the farm was too high to grow coffee; Seeing a herd of wild dogs; Account of the giraffe being shipped to Europe

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