Throughout her novel Malorie Blackman forges an allegory that highlights the injustices experienced by marginalized communities. She uses the fictional world of her novel to create a narrative representation of real life. Through this representation, she asks the reader to question the world-at-large and the injustices that plague it.

Blackman creates an alternative history in which Black humans enslaved white humans. She sets her novel years after slavery’s end and documents the injustices white citizens face as they fight for equal rights and representation. Through her exploration of the tragedies and discrimination faced by Callum’s family, Blackman offers a wider commentary on the ways in which Black humans are disenfranchised throughout the world. As Callum and Sephy grow up, they develop an awareness of the injustices in the Cross-dominated society they live in. Sephy comments on the way the media promotes a skewed representation of noughts. Through her relationship with Callum, she begins to ask questions like, “How come in all the early black-and-white films, the nought men were always ignorant drunkards or womanizers or both? And the women were always near-brainless servants?” (122). She recognizes how “the noughts were never in the news unless it was bad news” (122).