Point of View

Joyce Moyer Hostetter uses language in numerous ways to set the characters in a rural area during World War II. Most of this is done through her choice of words, but some of this characterization is also achieved by sentence structure and turn of phrase.

One of the most obvious ways language of the 1940s is different from what a modern reader would hear is in the words used to describe Black people. Hostetter notes this in a note before the novel even opens. She explains that she chooses to use words like Negro and Colored to describe Black people because these words, while out of use and considered offensive today, were the typical words used at the time. Authors frequently struggle with how to approach such issues in their works because to ignore the terms used in the past is to be historically dishonest...