The Land of Little Rain Literary Elements

Nature writing

The area around the Death Valley around 1900

First-person perspective

Awestruck, romantic, yet pessimistic at times

The protagonist is Mary Hunter Austin. Her antagonist is abstract and found in the influence of modern civilization on nature.

The major conflict is the one between man and nature. While there are humans living in harmony with nature, Austin clearly condemns civilized people who disfigure and exploit nature because they have lost their connection with it.

Austin's glorification of the people living in harmony with nature and the condemning of the people destroying it culminates in the description of the ideal way of life by presenting the seemingly utopian town of El Pueblo de Las Uvas, where houses are made of earth, and people live without any crime or class distinction, borrowing what they need from one another. In her closing sentence, she challenges her audience to visit Lave Uvas and change their selfish attitude.

Buzzards flying overhead indicate an animal's imminent death.

According to Austin, the word 'desert' is an understatement because it connotes an inhabitable land. However, "void of life it never is, however dry the air and villainous the soil."

When Austin meets the shepherd Petite Pete, she creates an idyllic and romantic image that resembles the peaceful scene surrounding the birth of Jesus, thus emphasizing that nature and its people are close to God: "When the fire kindles and savory meat seethes in the pot, when there is a drowsy blether from the flock, and far down the mesa the twilight twinkle of shepherd fires, when there is a hint of blossom underfoot and a heavenly whiteness on the hills, one harks back without effort to Judaea and the Nativity."

Painting an image of a night scene with owls, Austin relies on a description of sounds: "All night the rustle and soft hooting keeps on in the neighborhood of the spring, with seldom small shrieks of mortal agony," illustrating how the owls hunt at night.

Describing a mountain range, Austin combines seemingly paradox elements to indicate the complex and sometimes obscure ways that nature presents itself: "You will find it forsaken of most things but beauty and madness and death and God."

Scavenger birds and coyotes work together to find food. Similarly, the simple folk work together to overcome their hardships.

The houses made of earth in Las Uvas represent the simple way of life in harmony with nature.

By using a myriad of metaphors and personifications Austin creates a feeling that the land itself is alive: "The lake is the eye of the mountain, jade green, placid, unwinking, also unfathomable. Whatever goes on under the high and stony brows is guessed at." Describing the thunderstorms, she remarks, "The same season brings the rains that have work to do, ploughing storms that alter the face of things. [...] They come with great winds that try the pines for their work upon the seas and strike out the unfit."