Analysis Of Killers Of The Flower Moon

Imagine if all the people you love are systematically being killed. If, out of the blue, you receive a call saying your neighbor is dead (while you are still grappling with the suspicious loss of your mother). This is exactly what happened during the Osage Reign of Terror in the early 1920’s. In chapter 7 of his book Killers of the Flower Moon; The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, David Grann employs imagery, symbolism, juxtaposition, and syntax to create ethos and pathos in the reader. This allows him to evoke within them the terror and ever-present fear that the Osage people felt.

To start, Grann uses imagery to evoke pathos. He describes the day they found Henry Roan’s body: “the weather turned violently cold. Icy winds cut across

He begins the chapter by describing the car that Roan is found in as a “black coffin.” Even though the reader doesn’t know that Roan is dead, as soon as he employs the symbol of the car as a coffin we know that he must be. Throughout this chapter, Grann employs many other symbols of death (e.g. drinking alcohol) to show its persistence in this unending nightmare. Another perfect example is when he writes about the lightbulbs that the Osage hang about their residences. He writes: “electric light bulbs began to appear. . . dangling from rooftops and windowsills and over back doors, their collective glow conquering the dark.” He writes later on in the chapter: “then he and his friend drove back to Fairfax, passing the string of lightbulbs- the ‘fraid lights, as they were called- that shivered in the wind.” After the first part of the chapter, which is dark and sad, Grann uses these lightbulbs as a symbol of hope and protection for the Osage. He juxtaposes these symbols in order to show the measures that Osage were taking to protect themselves from this awful fate. However, he connects it back to the fear that lives in these people when he describes the lights as “‘fraid lights-” showing that they still are constant reminders of the