Genre
Middle Grade / Historical Fiction
Setting and Context
Set in 1860 in Ohio
Narrator and Point of View
It is narrated in first person from Silas’ point of view.
Tone and Mood
Mournful, Mystical, Mysterious, Haunting
Protagonist and Antagonist
Protagonist: Silas Bird; Antagonist: Evil apparitions
Major Conflict
After three horsemen take his father, Silas has to embark on a journey to find him and uncover the mystery behind it. Accompanied by their Arabian pony and a ghost, he has to become courageous and resilient while encountering evil ghosts in the woods.
Climax
The climax occurs when the marshal is injured and Silas has to seek help from the local authorities.
Foreshadowing
Silas’s reaction when they are attacked by the three horsemen foreshadows the path of bravery that he will undertake.
Understatement
N/A
Allusions
“Telemachus was the son of Ulysses,” I said, “Ulysses being the cleverest of all the Greek warriors who fought in the Trojan War. But Ulysses did something that made the gods mad at him, so they punished him by making him get lost on his way home to Ithaca, after the war was over. Twenty years went by, and Ulysses still hadn’t come home, so Telemachus, the son he’d left behind when he was just a baby, goes looking for him, to bring him back home.”
Imagery
“He kept walking, me following about five paces behind him, until we reached a little stream, no wider than I could jump across. On the other side of it was a small glade with a cluster of maple trees dotted with red buds. These bordered a clearing on which were piled a mess of burnt logs and ashes from previous campfires. I dumped the sticks and branches I had picked up onto the slab, and then led Pony to a tumbled maple about a dozen feet away. This is where the old man’s horse, a gloomy brown mare with close-set eyes, was tied to a branch.”
Paradox
N/A
Parallelism
“And Telemachus, he’s accompanied on his adventures by a man named Mentor, and that’s kind of like you, don’t you think? I mean, the way you’re teaching me about the Woods, and how to make a fire, and things of that nature.”
Metonymy and Synecdoche
“I was afraid Pony would bolt again”
Personification
“But after lightning imprinted my back with the image of the oak tree”
