The Letter (Evans) Literary Elements

Fiction, Romance

Salt Lake City, Utah, in the winter of the Great Depression

The narrator is Richard who is telling the story of the Parkins from both of their perspectives equally. The addition of excerpts from David's diary also adds his first person narrative and point of view

Heavy and depressing, hopeless yet relentlessly optimistic when it comes to David's view of the Depression

MaryAnne and David are the protagonists, the death of their young daughter the antagonist

There is extreme conflict between David and his mother even in her absence; he does not understand how she could abandon him when he was a child and is also conflicted regarding his decision to search for her

Catherine gives David the letter that MaryAnne found at the grave site and he realizes that his mother is alive after all and he makes the decision to look for her

David has a feeling that he will never see his wife again which foreshadows her leaving him

MaryAnne tells David that he has put up walls around his heart which is an understatement because he has cut off his heart completely and withheld access to it since the day Andrea died

David alludes to the pioneering pilot, Charles Lindbergh

Hybrough put the book the author uses the image of an angel to convey the connection that MaryAnne has to her dead daughter and also to her daughter's gravestone that. It only symbolizes her death but the death of their marriage

The rose that MaryAnne funds at the gravestone is covered with snow which has both killed it and preserved it, a paradox that means it can only be preserved in death thanks to the snow that took away its life.

There is a parallel between all three of the women that David has lived as they have all, in their own way, left him.

The mouthpiece refers to the members of David's workforce who speak on behalf of everybody

The sun was devoured by the predator moon - personifying the moon by crediting it with the quality of deliberate intention and plotting the downfall of the sun