Genre
Autobiography
Setting and Context
USA, Norway; time from the author's childhood to the moment she made the decision to write the book
Narrator and Point of View
Narrator: Hope Jahren/the author
Point of view: first person
Tone and Mood
Tone: personal, reflective
Mood: hopeful
Protagonist and Antagonist
Protagonist: Hope Jahren/the author
Major Conflict
The author decided to write an autobiography about her experiences and struggle to become a female scientist.
Climax
As successful scientists, the author and her friend Bill reminisce about their journey and where it led them, their friendship and the future ahead with Bill telling her to write a book about her life.
Foreshadowing
"Put it in a book. Do me that favor someday."
-Bill telling Hope to write a book about her life, which came true.
Understatement
"In my mind, in 1860, I see the men congratulate each other and gather around the root long enough to take a photograph with it. And then I picture them chopping it in half."
-The understated ironic tone with which the author describes the destruction of nature is quite impactful.
Allusions
"I thought again of Dickens, but this time Great Expectations."
Imagery
Imagery of nature, greenery, and nature setting plays an important part of the story.
Paradox
"Each beginning is the end of a waiting."
Parallelism
"My lab is a place to go on sacred days, as is a church. On holidays, when the rest of the world is closed, my lab is open. My lab is a refuge and an asylum.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
"In our tiny town, my father wasn't a scientist, he was the scientist, and being a scientist wasn't his job, it was his identity."
Personification
Plants are personified and compared to humans.
