Welcome to the LitCharts study guide on Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane. Created by the original team behind SparkNotes, LitCharts are the world's best literature guides.
The Ocean at the End of the Lane: Introduction
The Ocean at the End of the Lane: Plot Summary
The Ocean at the End of the Lane: Detailed Summary & Analysis
The Ocean at the End of the Lane: Themes
The Ocean at the End of the Lane: Quotes
The Ocean at the End of the Lane: Characters
The Ocean at the End of the Lane: Symbols
The Ocean at the End of the Lane: Theme Wheel
Brief Biography of Neil Gaiman
Historical Context of The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Other Books Related to The Ocean at the End of the Lane
- Full Title: The Ocean at the End of the Lane
- When Written: 2012
- Where Written: Florida and Texas
- When Published: 2013
- Literary Period: Contemporary
- Genre: Fantasy; Magical Realism
- Setting: A rural lane and the surrounding farmland in Surrey, England
- Climax: Lettie sacrifices herself to the hunger birds to save the narrator.
- Antagonist: Ursula Monkton / Skarthatch of the Keep; the Hunger Birds
- Point of View: First Person
Extra Credit for The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Portrait of the Author as a Young Man. The narrator of Ocean resembles seven-year-old Gaiman in a variety of ways. They share some of the same favorite novels (Alice in Wonderland and The Chronicles of Narnia series), and adult Gaiman has even shared a photo of himself climbing a drainpipe—which he, like the narrator, climbed because his favorite book characters did so.
Keyboard Cats. The narrator’s love of cats isn’t surprising, given Gaiman’s love of cats. On his blog, he’s chronicled the antics of several of his feline friends—though at speaking events, he disparagingly suggests that his cats have done nothing for him but add commas in his writing where they don’t belong.