Cold Mountain

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

Analytical Essay

Inman, a wounded confederate soldier, decides one day in the hospital that he wants to go home. He started on his journey back to Cold Mountain, to find the woman, Ada, which he was in love with before he went off to war. On the journey, he meets many unique characters, including an adulterous preacher named Veasey who joins him. Veasey is shot dead by the guard when they captured Inman and Veasey. Inman went hungry a lot of the time, but occasionally got fed by caring people who felt sorry for him.

Meanwhile, Ada's father had died, and Ada didn't know how she would run the farm alone. A young woman named Ruby went to Ada and helped her. During Inman's journey, Ada and Ruby built the farm back up to its former glory. Ruby's father, who had abandoned her as a child, appeared in the story. He was an outlier who lived in a cave on the mountain. By the end of the story the guard found him and his buddies and shot them. One survivor went to tell Ruby and Ada that Ruby's father was shot. They went up on the mountain to bury him, but they found him barely alive. They stayed at an abandoned Indian village to take care of him until he got well enough to make the journey back down the mountain. Inman found them here. After Stobrod (Ruby's dad) got well, they headed back down the mountain, where they ran into the guard that shot Stobrod earlier. Inman got shot during the battle with the guard. He lived, though, and he and Ada got married and had children.

This book is set in the 1860s-70s, during and after the Civil War. This time period affects the plot and characters greatly because it was war time and many of the characters were soldiers. The same story could be set in present times because a soldier could always run away. It wouldn't be as easy to escape or get home, though, as