Genre
Christian Fiction / Romance
Setting and Context
Set in 1908 in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Narrator and Point of View
Narrator: The unnamed friend to Mary Anne Parkin;
Point of View: First-person
Tone and Mood
Candid, Spiritual, Hopeful, Introspective
Protagonist and Antagonist
Protagonist: David Parkin; Antagonist: Cal Barker and Everen Hatt
Major Conflict
The narrative revolves around loss and forgiveness with the conflict occurring in the lives of the Parkin family. Including abandonment, death, and race relations the lives of the key characters are presented with hard choices with only forgiveness as the way out.
Climax
The climax occurs when Barker sets the Parkin house on fire in revenge and Andrea dies from her wounds.
Foreshadowing
“You will know what I mean.” I wondered if she really believed that I would or had merely given the assurance for her own consolation.”
The narrator is presented with the timepiece by Mary Anne foreshadowing the significance of the clock in the narrative.
Understatement
N/A
Allusions
The novel entails the biblical theme of forgiveness, that one should not hold anything against the other but forgive them, as the Lord will forgive them.
Imagery
“The timepiece was set in a finely polished rose-gold encasement. It had a perfectly round face with tiny numerals etched beneath a delicate, raised crystal. On each side of the face, intricately carved in gold, were scallopshell-shaped clasps connecting the casing to a matching rose-gold scissor watchband. I have never before, or since, seen a timepiece so beautiful.”
Paradox
“Do we have dreams, or do dreams have us?”
Parallelism
“S’pose there is a heaven, I wanna know what kinda heaven it be. Is it a heaven for white folks? Or is it a different heaven for colored folk and white folk? What you make of it?”
Metonymy and Synecdoche
“And if that puts you on the wrong side of the pearly gates, seems you would be better off on the outside.”
Personification
“As the falling sun stretched the remnant shadows of the day”
