A Time to Kill Literary Elements

Legal thriller

The action occurs in Clanton, Mississippi in the 1980s, less than twenty years after the height of the American civil rights movement.

Third-person narrator, with use of free indirect discourse (close-third on several characters, including minor ones)

The tone switches between somber and darkly comic. When Grisham describes the Haileys' situation, he does so with a seriousness that attempts to portray the gravity of their circumstances. When he describes the legal world of Jake Brigance, he does so with a wry nod to the corrupt ways of the judicial system.

The main protagonist is Jake Brigance. The main antagonists are Billy Ray Cobb and James “Pete” Willard, and later the prosecutor, Rufus Buckley.

The major conflict is that Carl Lee Hailey murdered the two men who raped his daughter Tonya, and now he's being tried for capital murder. Jake is trying to convince an all-white jury that Carl Lee was insane at the time when he committed the murders; more broadly, Jake needs to convince the jury to see beyond the color of Carl Lee's skin and understand his grief and the justifiable nature of his crimes.

The climax occurs at the height of Carl Lee's trial, right before the jury finds him not guilty of all charges.

While Carla is away in North Carolina, she always asks Jake over the phone if her house is still standing. This foreshadows the eventual burning down of their house by the Klan.

In the first chapter of the book, Grisham writes about Tonya's rape in an extremely understated and blunt manner, perhaps to surprise the reader once they realize the gravity of what is happening.

Grisham alludes to William Faulkner with the portrait hanging over Jake Brigance's desk.

Grisham favors sweeping imagery of the rural South.

Carl Lee fights in Vietnam and is ordered to kill strangers because the U.S. government deems them "enemies." Years after his service, when he kills two men for kidnapping and raping his daughter, he's tried for capital murder by the same government that ordered him to kill. To emphasize this irony and paradox, Grisham has Carl Lee use an M-16 rifle, the same gun he carried in Vietnam.

Grisham describes Dr. Bass flaunting his ostrich-leather boots to the jury. He writes, "He crossed his legs, laying the right boot on his left knee, flaunting it. He grinned at it, then grinned at the jury. The ostrich would have been proud" (413). In this case, he's personifying the ostrich as something that can feel pride.