Content Warning: This section of the guide includes descriptions of war violence and sexual assault. 

In retelling the events of the Second Italo-Ethiopian war, Mengiste is clear in her treatment of Italy as the aggressor but avoids the easy characterization of leaders and soldiers on the Italian side as exclusively villainous. Mengiste relies on an omniscient narrator and the sweeping language of the epic to expose the complexities of leadership and loyalty on both sides of the war. This allows for a deeper understanding of how war and conflict amplify the best and worst in human nature.

The distant, omniscient perspective and the lofty language of military epics like Homer’s Iliad and Virgil’s Aeneid—both directly alluded to in the novel—allows Mengiste to explore the deepest motivations of each leader and their followers. Just as the Iliad portrays Achilles and Hector as equals and foils, Mengiste uses a similar technique to uncover Kidane and Fucelli’s motivations, which begin long before the war. Both men can trace their cruelty and moral failings to the influence of their

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