The Killer Angels Sparknotes

The Killer Angels, written by American author Michael Shaara, is a constant third person narrative, which is about the Battle of Gettysburg (a small town in Virginia). The novel begins on the date of July 1, 1863, during the time of the Civil War where the Confederate army, and the Union army, fought the most substantial sized battle of the American Civil War. In my research based outside of the book, I discovered that several of the characters in the novel are based on real historical figures. Those characters include, General Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate army; General James Longstreet, Lee’s second in command; and Union Colonel Joshua L. Chamberlain, who participated in one of the most famous segments of the Battle of Gettysburg,

During the actual war, the soldiers of the Confederacy and of the Union often tended to demonize one another. In order to be able to kill someone, the soldiers had to think of that person as less than human, or else the guilt of killing another man could become unbearably difficult to live with. Both the North and the South are often presented as noble men fighting for their way of life against slavery, or for federal control of states. Some of those examples of hatred and demonization were presented to readers during the course of the book. However, there was not enough for the reader to get a sense of how brutal and vicious the Civil War was outside of the battlefield because The Killer Angels is a war between gentlemen. The novel focuses almost exclusively on men of the upper class of society hierarchy, especially on the Confederate side. The Confederate side’s colonels and generals are realized in the novel but never privates or sergeants, which is what contributes to the lack of diversity from different perspectives from poor White Americans and Black Americans in general, within the

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was what he was formerly addressed as when he was a professor at Bowdoin University, which was before the war. He is now known as Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and is in command of the Twentieth Maine Regiment. Due to his educational background as a former professor, Chamberlain displays calmness and is able to make decisive decisions when under pressure. It is over time that Chamberlain enjoys what takes place on the battlefield as he begins to find it exhilarating. Through the character Chamberlain, author Michael Shaara illustrates the nation’s division. Chamberlain ruminates several times on a discussion he had with a Southern professor, and it is evident that Chamberlain himself is divided. He struggles internally on his values he holds. The same values that the Northern abolitionist believed, that black deserve to be free, but on the other hand, Chamberlain is troubled by the sense of disgust that he feels at the sight of a black man early in the novel. The professor initially argued with Chamberlain, saying that blacks are subhuman, and, of course, Chamberlain disagreed. However, when seeing the injured black man, Chamberlain notices what he thinks of as the man’s animal-like qualities and wonders if the professor’s statements on that black people are subhuman is a logical and probable one. Chamberlain suffers from a form of internal division, but it is