Braiding Sweetgrass Literary Elements

Nonfiction

The book is written in the context of botany.

First-person narrative

The tone is enlightening, and the mood is reflective.

The narrator is the story's protagonist.

The main conflict is that the narrator’s indigenous identity clashes with her scientific research.

The climax is when the narrator interacts with nature. For instance, the narrator removes algae from the pond and makes a maple syrup made from plants.

The narrator’s love for nature is foreshadowed by her indigenous culture in the Native American society.

The narrator’s teaching career at the university is understated. Besides teaching religion, the narrator teaches her students about the significance of creating balance in nature to promote sustainability.

The story alludes to the significance of conserving the environment.

The narrator combines both sight and hearing imagery to engage readers throughout the text. For instance, the narrator says, “The crows see me coming across the field, a woman with a basket, and argue my provenance loudly among themselves. The soil is hard under my feet, bare except for a scattering of plough-scraped rocks and a few of last year's corn stalks, their remnant prop roots squatting like bleached-out spider legs.”

The main paradox is that human beings are not integrated into the natural world in the contemporary world, but they dominate it, which is a complete contrast. Therefore, people do not value the conservation of the environment.

N/A

Braiding Sweetgrass is a metonymy for the significance of environmental conservation.

The three sister plants are incarnated.