Summary Of Peace Like A River By Leif Enger

The novel, Peace Like A River, by Leif Enger, uses the three literary elements of the importance of setting, allusions, and Foreshadowing. All three of these literary elements help contribute to the theme. The first literary element that is important to the novel is the importance of setting. The first setting of the story is in Roofing Minnesota in around the 1960’s. Laws have changed over the years which makes the punishment of Davy’s crime. If this crime were to happen in this century then the crime would be counted as self-defense and the boys that Davy killed would’ve been in much more trouble for kidnapping Swede for the couple of minutes that they did. Even though many prisoners do find ways to escape prison, it would’ve been more difficult for Davy

From biblical allusions, to the epic “The Odyssey”, Romeo and Juliet, Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. There’s many other allusions in the story but the ones that stick out the most are the biblical and western. The first major biblical one that appears in the story is in the beginning. Reuben Land, the protagonist, barely had any chance of living due to him not being able to breathe properly. His father had been praying right before he ran to the hospital and demanded his son to breathe, even when Doctor Nokes had tried everything he could to make Jerimiah’s son to breathe. Suddenly, when Jerimiah says “Reuben Land, in the name of the living God I am telling you to breathe.” Another allusion, to the many allusions in this beautiful piece of work, is when Jerimiah is able to heal a sickly man’s face by placing his hand on it. The western allusions are another big part of the allusions. Jerimiah and his family moves west when finding Davy and Jerimiah falls in love with a woman named Roxanne. Davy himself is an outlaw on the run from the police, like any western story. Allusions are thrown all over the novel, creating an extraordinary, and different type of