# XVI explained — The Informer

> Chapter companion for The Informer by Liam O’Flaherty.

## What happens

Gypo Nolan, having escaped from the Bogey Hole, flees through the Dublin slums in a state of panic and exhaustion. He seeks sleep in Katie Fox's lodging house, where Katie rambles about her delusions of noble lineage while Gypo drifts in and out of nightmares. After a restless rest, he wanders the streets, tormented by paranoia and the memory of Gallagher's eyes, and runs wildly when he hears approaching policemen, forgetting he is now under police protection as an informer. The chapter ends with him recognizing a clock near Katie's house.

## Themes in this chapter

### Guilt and Paranoia

Gypo's frantic flight and inability to reason reflect his overwhelming guilt and paranoia after informing on McPhillip.

### Fate and Inevitability

Gypo's aimless running and the recurring motif of sleep and nightmares suggest an inescapable fate closing in on him.

## Character check-ins

### Gypo Nolan

Exhausted and paranoid, Gypo seeks sleep at Katie's, then flees through the streets in panic, forgetting his new status as an informer.

### Katie Fox

Rambles about her imagined aristocratic past and a curse on her family while Gypo sleeps in her lodging house.

### Louisa Cummins

The old woman in the bed, who taunts Katie and struggles under Gypo's heavy hand.

### Commandant Dan Gallagher

Appears in Gypo's vision as a haunting memory with glittering eyes.

## Key lines

> Sleep, sleep, sleep. Then a mad rush to the mountains.

Gypo's mind oscillates between the desire for rest and the urgent need to escape to the mountains.

_Highlights Gypo's internal conflict between exhaustion and the instinct to flee._

> He forgot that he had only to rush up to them and say that the Revolutionary Organization had condemned him to death and were now tracking him, in order to be taken to a police barracks, into safety.

Gypo fails to realize that as an informer, the police would protect him from the revolutionaries.

_Emphasizes Gypo's psychological disorientation and his inability to adapt to his new role._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_informer_se/chapters/xvi
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_informer_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_informer_se/chapters