Run With The Horsemen
Run With The HorsemenLittle Porter Osborne, Jr. grew up on a farm in Georgia where the people own the land and the land, in turn, owns the people. In the novel, Run with the Horsemen, Porter fights his way through adolescence and the depression, learning more about life every day from the big boys under the tree at lunch. Ferrol Sams is able to portray a realistic account of life on a farm during the depression by using humor, dialect, and vivid imagery.
Humor is used throughout the book to keep the reader interested in what would otherwise be a boring story of hard work and hard times. The boring and tedious act of plowing is turned into a dangerous, yet humorous, occurrence when a release of methane gas from the mule was met by a match that Porter happened to be holding in close proximity to the rear of the animal. This resulted in a flame that �hissed and crackled and had long, feathery projections on the upper side of it, and it kept on and on and on and was altogether awe-inspiring to witness.�
Another device used throughout the novel to give a sense of authenticity is diction. Although the members of the Osborne family speak properly, the farm hands (who were, up until a short time before the novel, slaves), speak in a southern dialect which portrays them as uneducated. A good example of...
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