Genre
A collection of poems
Setting and Context
Set in the modern United States of America
Narrator and Point of View
First-person narrative
Tone and Mood
Sad, hopeful, and optimistic
Protagonist and Antagonist
The central character is Natalie Diaz.
Major Conflict
The major conflict is that the speaker's brother is a drug addict struggling to get out of the infatuation.
Climax
The climax comes when Diaz leaves her addicted brother to God's mercies because there is no other way out.
Foreshadowing
Her earlier experiences foreshadowed the inclusion of the reservation in Diaz's poems as a Native American.
Understatement
The negative influence of drug addiction is understated. Diaz's brother is a drug addict, and he has struggled to get out of addiction but in vain.
Allusions
The story alludes to the impact of drug addiction.
Imagery
The imagery of the sky depicts the sense of sight to readers. The speaker describes the sky as red blue with tortoise smoke.
Paradox
The main paradox is that angels cannot heal the speaker's brother because he has not accepted salvation.
Parallelism
There is a parallelism between drug addiction and the speaker's brother's frustration in his daily life.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
N/A
Personification
Drugs are personified as lethal.
