Literary Devices in The Wee Free Men
Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
Setting
The Chalk The Chalk refers to the land where the Achings have lived for generations and Tiffany Aching now resides. It is a rural area—the Achings are farmers—and all of the land is owned by th...
Narrator Point of View
The Wee Free Men is told from an unnamed narrator's point of view, but we still get to see into Tiffany's thinking. We only see what she considers though, and nothing from the perspectives of other...
Genre
FantasyThe Wee Free Men invites us as readers to suspend reality and dive into a world where witches are grown, tiny blue men are the most fearsome of fairies, and evil queens kidnap children into...
Tone
Even though things are confusing and Tiffany finds herself in a not-so-good situation in The Wee Free Men, the tone of the story isn't one of weeping and bemoaning the state of affairs. Instead, li...
Writing Style
The writing style of The Wee Free Men follows a pretty typical narrative, but gets decidedly whimsical when we're confronted with the inhabitants (or former inhabitants) of Fairyland. After all, th...
What's Up With the Title?
The whole story is about Tiffany Aching and her quest to bring home her little brother, so why isn't the book called something like Tiffany's Grand Adventure instead of The Wee Free Men? Perhaps be...
What's Up With the Ending?
For such an exciting story through strange and magical landscapes, The Wee Free Men ends in a rather bland place—with Tiffany making cheese in the barn. When Roland comes to talk to her, she calm...
Tough-o-Meter
The language in The Wee Free Men is pretty simple—it's written for an audience of wee ones, after all. And since Tiffany Aching is only nine years old and most of the story follows her journey, i...
Plot Analysis
Wee Lass in a Quaint Town At the beginning of the book, we meet Tiffany Aching, a scrappy little nine-year-old who is in a quaint little town. We're introduced to her family (including an incredibl...
Trivia
Apparently when Disney signed on to make The Wee Free Men into a movie, they wanted Tiffany to receive a gold star every time she achieved something… which feels very kindergarten. Pratchett wasn...
Steaminess Rating
Nothing to see here, folks. This is a book that's very suitable for children. The PG rating only comes into play because there is a little bit of a kerfuffle that Tiffany gets into when she realize...