Incorporating suspense with melodramatic as well as cinematic techniques, Stone attempts in A Flag for Sunrise to portray the social and political decadence of the modern world derived in part from the fictional ouevre of Graham Greene, notably in The Power and the Glory (1940), The Heart of the Matter (1948), The Quiet American (1955), The Comedians (1966), and The Honorary Counsul (1973). Like Greene, Stone is drawn to a locale that heightens the intensity and complexity of thematic elements by association with danger and uncertainty. Characters are confronted with circumstances that force them by necessity to redefine themselves as a means of survival.

Recognizing the chaotic and surreal nature of the political turmoil in Central America as conducive to fictional treatment, Stone, like Joan Didion in Salvador (1982), captures in A Flag for Sunrise the magnitude and futility of the contemporary situation.