History Literature / TheOceanAtTheEndOfTheLane

* {{Foreshadowing}}: When the narrator sees Ursula Monkton for the first time, he feels a twinge in his heart...[[spoiler:because that's where the last piece of the hole is]].

* FullNameBasis: Ursula Monkton is always given her full name, at least when the narrator thinks of it. Out loud, he only refers to her as "her".

* ShoutOut: Several ones to ''DoctorWho''. Was anyone surprised?

** The frame narrative itself: the narrator ends up going back to the Hempstocks' farm many years later after taking a detour on the way to his sister's house after a funeral. The circumstances make it seem fairly likely that one of his parents has died, but this is never made explicit or expanded upon.

* IKnowYourTrueName: Never specifically comes into play, but Ursula chides Lettie for trying to seal her without knowing her name and Lettie goes to a lot of trouble to find it out. She finally does find out what Ursula's real name is [[spoiler: Scathach of the Keep]] and is able to make Ursula behave herself more after she figures this out.

* BittersweetEnding: The EldritchAbomination that's been haunting the narrator is defeated, but [[spoiler: the hunger birds try to devour the narrator's heart, forcing Lettie to sacrifice herself. She's not technically dead, but she's been healing for over forty years and hasn't woken up, and the narrator can only remember fragments of what had happened.]]

** The narrator has tea and eats dinner with the Hempstocks several times. They are really lovely people, even though they aren't actually people and are older than the universe itself.

* DidYouJustRomanceCthulu?: A HumanoidAbomination has sex with [[spoiler: the narrator's father]].

** Also the "fleas", and, in a somewhat more benevolent version of this trope, possibly the Hempstock women as well

* AFormYouAreComfortableWith: Ursula (who actually looks like a mass of rotten gray cloth), Lettie (who actually looks like a form made of silk the color of frost illuminated by candle light) and presumably her mother and grandmother (Ginnie always appears human, and Old Mrs. Hempstock only partially reveals herself [[spoiler: when the hunger birds almost kill Lettie]] as a woman whose hair and clothes shine so bright she looks like she's made of magnesium). It's also implied that everyone's true self looks very different from their physical form.
* FramingDevice: The novel starts when the narrator is middle-aged and returning to his home town. And then he starts to remember what happened when he was seven...

** The epilogue implies that this is not exactly what happened, maybe [[spoiler:the narrator died in the original timeline, but Old Mrs. Hempstock snipped-and-cut that out and Lettie jumped in his place]], but this is left ambiguous at best.
** The main character himself attempted one a moment earlier, leaving the safety of the Hempstock farm because he knew that if he didn't, his world would be devoured. Which lead to the above mentioned sacrifice.

* IKnowYourTrueName: Never specifically comes into play, but Ursula chides Lettie for sealing her without knowing her name and Lettie goes to a lot of trouble to find it out. She finally does find out what Ursula's real name is [[spoiler: Scathach of the Keep]] and is able to make Ursula behave herself more after she figures this out.

* AmbiguouslyJewish: The narrator's grandmother and aunts are mentioned as using Yiddish words occasionally, implying that he at the very least comes from a Jewish family.
** Given that Gaiman has admitted that the protagonist is based loosely on himself at that age, and Gaiman's family is Jewish, this is probably the case.

* BittersweetEnding

* CatsAreMagic: The cat the narrator finds isn't a normal cat. [[spoiler:For one thing, it's still alive after forty years.]]
** That could be because the cat is normal, but [[spoiler: time doesn't pass the same way on Hempstock land.]]
* ChekhovsGun: The pond. The kitten.

* DidWeJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu: The narrator has tea and eats dinner with the Hempstocks several times. They are really lovely people, even though they aren't actually people and are older than the universe itself.

* EldritchAbomination: The hunger birds. They come from outside of reality and can ''literally'' eat the world into nothingness to restore it to its natural order, similar to ClockRoaches.

* HeroicSacrifice: As the narrator remembers it, [[spoiler:Lettie put herself on the line to save his life. She didn't die, but was badly hurt, so her mother gave her back to the ocean to heal.]]

** The main character himself attempted one a moment earlier, leaving the safety of the Hempstock farm because he knew that if he didn't, his world would be devoured. Which lead to Lettie's above mentioned sacrifice.

* MenAreTheExpendableGender: This seems to be true for the males of the Hempstock family.
* NoNameGiven: The narrator is never given any name. Even his father usually just calls him "son."
** A couple of throw-away comments make it fairly clear that his name is George (Ursula Monkton calls him "pudding-and-pie", in reference to the nursery rhyme "Georgie Porgie Pudding-and-Pie"; his father actually calls him "Handsome George" at one point). His sister, on the other hand, is always just referred to as "my [little] sister". Neither parents get named beyond their relationship to the narrator, and the family's last name is never mentioned.
* NoodleIncident: References are made to two previous times the Hempstocks had to shoo "fleas" off of Earth, one in Cromwell's time with a creature that looked rather like a giant frog who made people lonely, and one in "Red Rufus's Time" (Red Rufus being [[TheHouseOfNormandy King William II]]) who made people's dreams come true.

* BewareTheNiceOnes: You REALLY don't want to get on the bad side of the Hempstock women. They'll feed you, clean you, and treat you like a member of the family if you're in their good graces. Get in their way, and they'll sick horrifying [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch Abominations]] on you.

** Given that Gaiman has admitted that the protagonist is based loosely on himself at that age, and Gaiman's family is Jewish, this is probably the case

* BerserkButton: [[spoiler: The hunger birds accidentally harming Lettie while trying to eat the protagonist's heart]] serves as one for Old Mrs. Hempstock, making her so angry she scares the ''hunger birds''

* BigGood: The three Hempstocks as a whole, but particularly Old Mrs. Hempstock. They see it as their mission to shoo off "fleas" (otherwise known by others as [[EldritchAbomination Eldritch Abominations]]) back to where they came from, both to keep them from hurting humanity, and also [[spoiler: to keep them from attracting the hunger birds]]

** That could be because the cat is normal, but [[spoiler: time doesn't pass the same way on Hempstock land]]

* TermsofEndangerment: Ursula Monkton calls the narrator "sweety-weety-pudding-and-pie" right before threatening to [[spoiler:lock him in the attic and then make his own father drown him]].

* NoodleIncident: References are made to two previous times the Hempstocks had to shoo "fleas" off of Earth, one in Cromwell's time with a creature that looked rather like a giant frog who made people lonely, and one in "Red Rufus's Time" who made people's dreams come true.

''Literature/TheOceanAtTheEndOfTheLane'' is a 2013 dark fantasy book by NeilGaiman.

* NoodleIncident: References are made to two previous times the Hempstocks had to shoo "fleas" off of Earth, one in Cromwell's time with a creature that looked rather like a giant frog who made people lonely, and one in "Red Rufus' Time" who made people's dreams come true.

** A less pleasant example occurs when the narrator and his father and sister eat dinner with a much less benevolent EldritchAbomination.
* DidYouJustRomanceCthulu?: An EldritchAbomination disguised as a human woman has sex with [[spoiler: the narrator's father]].

* BewareTheNiceOnes: You REALLY don't want to get on the bad side of the Hempstock women. They'll feed you, clean you, and treat you like a member of the family if you're in their good graces. Get in their way, and they'll sick horrifying [[EldritchAbomination]]s on you.