History and Society

The novel’s historical setting is fairly specific, as well as integral to the meaning and narrative of the story. The story is set soon after the end of the Civil War, during the early Reconstruction period in the United States. Union soldiers have begun to arrive in the South to free enslaved people and set up methods of federal oversight over state and local governments. As the narration states towards the beginning of the book, “They’d heard rumblings that Union soldiers were drawing near” (24). These events both directly and indirectly affect the characters’ lives, such as when Union soldiers free Prentiss and Landry from enslavement. The integral relationship between this historical backdrop and the main narrative represent the inextricable connections between personal and political phenomena.

This setting is also notable for the societal and interpersonal tensions that persist in the wake of...