A Land Remembered Literary Elements

Historical Fiction

Set in Florida between 1858 and 1968

Narrator: Omniscient speaker

Point Of View: Third-person

Spirited, Tragic, Nostalgic, Satirical

Protagonist and Antagonist Protagonist: Tobias MacIvey and Solomon MacIvey; Antagonist: Harsh frontier conditions and greed.

The first generation of the MacIveys battles the harsh conditions of the frontier while indomitably working themselves towards gaining generational wealth. Through into the next two generations, the family has to wrestle with their greed and choices that affect the next kin and the land they reside on.

The climax is reached when the hurricane hits, damaging Sol’s properties and killing thousands including his girlfriend Bonnie.

The bond between the two half-brothers –Sol and Toby –foreshadows the strained relationship they later have into their old age.

N/A

The novel alludes to the frontier history of Florida including significant events such as the Lake Okeechobee hurricane.

“By now they had left the city and entered the Everglades with its endless stretches of open sawgrass dotted with distant hammocks of hardwood and palm. The road and both shoulders were littered with the decaying bodies of small animals struck by automobiles.”

N/A

Solomon and Toby possess conflicting drives with Sol’s greed colliding with Toby’s need to preserve the native land.

“The Feds have got every port blockaded, and ain’t hardly nothing getting through from Cuba.”

“The dead trunks of pines pointed upward forlornly, some peppered with woodpecker holes, the limbless trees giving evidence of some great fire that had once rushed over the land…”