Literature Analysis #2: Cold Mountain

GENERAL
1. Cold Mountain describes a young man's jouney back to his true love during the Civil War. Falling for each other before he had to leave, Inman and Ada's relationship was in the peak of just beginning to bloom. But wanted to fight in the war, Inman found himself soon saying goodbye to his love and promising he would be back soon. Time passes and Ada is left trying to revive her father's farm by herself. After hiring some help, and building a new friendship, Ada finds herself still wandering if Inman will come back to her. The immense amount of time being seperated from each other tears Ada and Inman apart from deep inside them. A few months into the war, Inman is wounded and stranded by his own body. This starts his journey, wounded and barely able to walk, back to Cold Mountain where his heart is waiting for him. He finally returns to his love and reunites with her. But only a little while later, Inman is shot by a horseman, leaving Ada alone forever. She is devasted, but by the end of the book, realizes the hardships she has gone through are the ones that make her strong and able to take care of herself now.
2. The theme of this book is definitely that time is hard thing at times, but can also be the one thing that makes change possible. The book decribes how not only does time change these characters but it also changes the culture and land of the time back then.
3. The author's tone is very sincere and heartfelt. His words are soothing to the ear. "He wished to live a life where little interest could be found in one gang of despots launching attacks upon another." "The world was such an incredibly lonely place, and to lie down beside him, skin to skin, seemed the only cure." "But for a while that night, it was a place that held within its walls no pain nor even a vague memory collection of pain."
4. Imagery: "The view was a long one for the flatlands, the hospital having been built on the only swell within eyeshot." Metaphors: The scenery and the endless mountain lines are metaphors of the long journey and hardships both Inman and Ada had to go through to find one another. Similies: "The window was as tall as a door..." Foreshadowing: Inman escaping the Home Guard team only to be shot later. Also, the appearnce of the crow Ada sees is a depiction of death. Symbolism: The crow symbolizing death; the forks in the roads and crossing symbolizing different options for Ada and Inman and Inman's journey

CHARACTERIZATION
1. Direct: When Inman is thinking and talking about how Ada looks to him and how beautiful she is; Inman's depiction of the old man who doesn't talk
Indirect: When Ruby says that Inman's fever is back up she is saying that he's getting worse; When Ada and Ruby are talking about Inman they decribe how he looks and how sick he is.
The author uses both of these to decribe characters by exact desciption using mostly direct characterization because he wants to let the readers know exactly how someone is and what they look like rather than through someone else.
2. The author's diction and syntax definitely changes as he changes from character to character because the book is written in two people's different views. When the author is focused on Inman, the diction and syntax are more strong and brute. Unlike when focused on Ada, it's more sweet and womenlike, yet also strong at the same time.
3. There are actually two protagonists in this book and I would say they are definitely both dynamic for they change throughout the whole story. At the beginning they are both sad, lonely, and depressed characters. Mostly just missing each other and wanting to get back to one another. By the end of the story, Inman has travelled on a long journey and it has shaped him into this even stronger man than before. Ada is faced with Inman's death and the depression could overtake her like before, but instead it makes her even stronger and she can now take care of herself.
4. After reading this book, I came away feeling I had just been a direct witness to these people's whole lives. All the decriptions and feelings piled high up on me really sucked me into the book and definitely made me apart of their own world. At the very end of the book, Ada has just gone through hell and come out a survivor. I felt like I had just gone through all of her troubles as well as her special moments with her. She decribes her life now after Inman dies as loving and full, yet there will always be a part of her that is still with Inman, but she can now live life the way she always wanted to when she was waiting for him to come back to her. I felt like we had gone through the same thing, and maybe I even felt I was her and I had been the one who went through this heartbreaking but magnificient part of my life.