Genre
Historical fictional novel
Setting and Context
Set in Tulsa Oklahoma
Narrator and Point of View
Third-person narrative
Tone and Mood
The tone and mood are neutral.
Protagonist and Antagonist
The central character is Rowan Chase, who is a seventeen year-old girl.
Major Conflict
The main conflict is that a skeleton is discovered underneath Rowan's house floor, and it has been there for almost a hundred years.
Climax
The climax is that racism still exists over a century after William died of similar mistreatments hundred years ago.
Foreshadowing
Rowan’s current challenges are foreshadowed by the obstacles that William Tillman went through almost a century ago. Both William and Rowan are products of mixed race.
Understatement
Racism is understated. Despite subjecting blacks to discrimination, the whites intentionally kill the blacks without remorse. When Rowan gets involved in an accident, a black man called Arvin comes to her rescue, but he is pushed and knocked by a white man to death.
Allusions
The story alludes to the negativities of racism against blacks.
Imagery
Racism imagery is dominant throughout the text. The author provides images of racism dating back a hundred years. The author draws a comparison of what happened in those years and now. Unfortunately, nothing has changed because in contemporary America still, racism is rampant.
Paradox
The main paradox is that despite the massive campaigns against racism, bigotry is still disadvantaging black Americans.
Parallelism
N/A
Metonymy and Synecdoche
N/A
Personification
The skeleton was personified as a killer in the 1920s.
