Genre
Historical non fiction
Setting and Context
America; during the Civil War in 1865
Narrator and Point of View
The narrator is in the third person who tells the stories of four southerners during the civil war without taking a stand.
Tone and Mood
The tone is uninspiring while the mood is melancholy because the book describes the events around the Civil War.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The protagonists are the people who suffered as a result of the Civil War whereas the antagonists are the rebel armies.
Major Conflict
The major conflict is the Civil War in 1865 that left most people in the United States destitute and they constantly wished for it to end. The Civil War had caused a lot of harm including the death of soldiers like Angus who were the breadwinners of their families.
Climax
The assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.
Foreshadowing
During the last days of winter, the wild geese that symbolized the coming of spring which is a warmer month was a foreshadowing to the end of bad times which was the civil war and the beginning of good and peaceful times for America.
Understatement
The narrator says that Rockbridge had had a small taste of the new hard war policy, which is an understatement because the area had been looted by the armies and the households were left destitute.
Allusions
Biblical allusion occurs when Cornelia describes herself as a shepherd who would answer to The Almighty about her flock. It is allusion because she places herself in the shepherd role as a mother of seven children who she describes as her flock.
Imagery
The description of spring as ,'Spring would bring longer days, warmer skies and greener woods and fields.' This description contains imagery because it has used adjectives such as 'greener' to describe spring.
Paradox
N/A
Parallelism
The narrator draws a parallel between the white men who worked at the Alabama State Salt Works and the slaves. The narrator does so by describing what work each did. The slaves did the manual work and were not paid a salary while the white men had administrative positions from which they earned wages.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
N/A
Personification
Spring has been personified in the statement, 'Spring would bring longer days, warmer skies and greener woods and fields.'
