Setting: Time and Place

The present time of Da is set in May, 1968, in Ireland, when Charlie is in his mid-forties. The various memory scenes include flashbacks to the early 1930s, when Charlie is seven; the World War II era of the early-to-mid 1940s, when he is in his teen years; the 1950s, when he is a young man; and the early 1960s, when he is in his thirties. Although Leonard has claimed that he is a writer and not necessarily an Irish writer, the setting in Ireland is significant, as Charlie's Da makes reference to such events in Irish history as the potato famine of the 1840s, the struggles for Irish national independence waged by the Irish Republican Army from the 1920s to the 30s, and the events of World War II.

Narrative Structure

Da is structured as a series of memory scenes, which function like flashbacks in...