The Coffin Quilt Summary

Hatred was buried down deep between the Hatfields and the McCoys. Fanny McCoy guided herself through the twisted branches of family, love, and hatred. “The Coffin Quilt” by Ann Rinaldi told the story of the feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys, at least how Fanny McCoy lived it. But was she a trustworthy source of information for what happened? Her young age alone could cause some discrepancies with the telling of the arduous feud. She had divided loyalties within her family which made cause for trouble. Also, being a McCoy gave readers little knowledge of the Hatfields’ viewpoint. Fanny may have been the sole voice of reason, but because of her young mindset, loyalties, and developed dislike for the Hatfields, she proved to be an unreliable

With Fanny’s narration, readers dove into the McCoy life and learned peculiar family facts such as Ma’s vengeful religion. For example, Ma would “put the pebbles of everybody she prayed for” (4) by her tree stump. Through Fanny’s narration, readers learned about the McCoys and were not given an insight of the Hatfields. Hatred between the families did not start from birth, and in this case it stemmed from the actions between them. Naturally, Fanny was taught to dislike the Hatfield folk, so readers merely knew what Fanny thought of them. With third person omniscient, readers would know the thoughts of all characters, places, events, etc. of a novel. Using third person omniscient narration would have provided a better understanding of the story instead of being restrained to a single person’s thoughts. Readers knew that “those were the people, headed up by Devil Anse, who shot and killed Pa’s brother Harmon” (12) and continued “The War Amongst Us” (12). Tolbert explained to Fanny the McCoy side of the story, which was the only side she ever knew and could tell the reader. Because of Fanny’s influence, readers were given a prejudice against the Hatfields, therefore she demonstrated to be