For a man so disposed, this job was an adventure, a lark.
-- Narration (chapter 2)

Importance: Four and Nine function as narrative foils to each other, and this line of narration helps to establish their character differences. Four takes his job very seriously, while Nine shirks his duties in favor of exploring the countryside and interacting with the locals. These character contrasts not only provide a central source of dramatic tension, but they also allow the novel to explore the positive and negative aspects to the characters' differing actions/outlooks.

Everything around them was standard for a developing country after a war.
-- Narration (chapter 2)

Importance: The novel never names the country in which the story takes place. As this line of narration implies, this country is somewhat generic in its presentation, as it symbolically represents many other postwar developing countries. In this way, the events and ideas in the narrative can be applied more universally to similar...