Narrative Strategies and Authorial Intent in Good Omens: A Satirical Response to the Changing World

Abstract

The paper examines the narrative strategies and authorial intent in Good Omens, a collaborative novel by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, with a focus on how a text operates as a satirical response to a rapidly changing world. Published in 1990, at the cusp of the new millennium and amid post-Cold War anxieties, the novel engages deeply with themes of apocalypse, prophecy and human folly. Through a rich interweaving of biblical allusions, socio-historical commentary and literary satire, the paper aims to critique Good Omens. The collaborative authorship of Gaiman and Pratchett informs a distinctive narrative voice that merges Pratchett’s satirical sharpness with Gaiman’s mythic and metaphysical imagination. The paper explores how the authors leverage satire not solely for humour but as a deliberate tool for cultural, socio-historical and political analysis, drawing attention to the late-20th-century Western society.