Dear America - When Will This Cruel War Be Over?

DEAR AMERICA

When Will This Cruel War Be Over?



Report by: Jennifer Osei

Book by: Barry Denenberg

Pd .4

Characters

Emma Simpson- She is the main character in this story . The whole concept of the book is about her diary . In her diary she talks about the stress and anxiety the war has brought upon her family .Emma to me is a static character. She still to me doesn’t mature as much as she says she has. She complains a lot .If she really matured she would have handled things like her Aunt Caroline.

Aunt Caroline-She is one important characters in the book . She keeps patient thought the story which makes her static. Even when there was hard times ,like when baby Elizabeth died which I think it was from scarlet fever. (Maybe she caught from lily some how.) She still stood her ground .

Cousin Rachel- She’s one on Aunt Caroline’s daughters . She changes dramatically . From the girl who dreamed of getting married to despising it

And think its best not to get married at all . She becomes very angry with the war and marriage that it was starting to scare thoughts around her . Later in the story I found epilogue that Aunt Caroline sent her to a mental incaution for the insane . She died there some say she killed herself by jumping out the window or someone pushed her no one knows .

Mrs. Simpson- Emma’s mom who was in the book for a short time . She help out around the house . Even with the fathers chores like watch the slaves .

But on Monday, April 18,1864 she’s dies. She is a static character.

Iris-She is a slave . She sticks with Emma and her family throughout the war . She has a daughter names Dinah that Emma thinks is just like her. I’m learned in the Epilogue that she lived with Emma and tally after the war . But later on fines a husband and they find a house together . She is static .

Amos-He’s a slave . He also sticks with them till the end of the war . He’s a very old man he has no children or wife to care for so he looks at the Simpson’s has his family. In the Epilogue he lives with Aunt Caroline he is also is a static.

Tally- He loves Emma. Him and Emma met at a party and fell in love from then he has been sending her letters . He goes into the war and he’s a static character because he says the same his just like Emma . In the end he marries Emma

Mr. Simpson- He’s Emma’s dad he a static he always saying we are going to win this war and that they should not worry that thing will end up the way it was be for but in the end he dies.

Settings

The setting of the story takes place in Gordonsville, Virginia, U.S.A in 1864

Conflicts

The conflicts in the story was how were they going to survive during the war . Like food wise and how they were going to keep the soldiers out. Also how they would help the family member who were sick. Seeing if any of the slaves would leave them . Making sure that the soldiers would not come and burn down there homes and eat all of there food and take there valuable goods like gold sliver and jewelry and take over there home ( which they did). Coping with death which was a lot of.

Plot

The first page someone dies, which was Emma’s brother Cole Simpson he died of an pneumonia. Emma remembers the past. How Christmas will never be the same how ever thing won’t be the same . She as a imagine her and her family look out from there pouch and the swarm of family members coming to visit and how her bother and Emma would be so eager to see what gifts they had .The next time she writes in her diary it new years she makes a new years resolution that she would help her mother more and that all the other resolutions she had were childish . After new years she had a new thing that she wanted to start again ,she what to start reading again