"Dear America Like The Willow Tree"
Author:Lois Lowry
Story Plot
Exposition: The story "Like The Willow Tree", takes place in Portland,Maine,1918.The main characters are Lydia Pierce,Sister Jennie and Shaker girls.A Spanish disease called the influenza.
Text Evidence Setting:Portland,Maine,1918. Is on page 1.
Rising Action:Lydia's parents and baby sister Lucy died.
Lydia and her brother,Daniel move in with Uncle Henry at his farm for a few days,then their Aunt Sarah makes them go to the United Society of Shakers in Sabbathday lake,Maine.Lydia and Daniel can't be together at the Shakers.
Text Evidence:I have not written for eight days.What could I write?Father is dead.Mother is dead.My baby sister, Lucy, is dead.
Climax:Daniel runs away from the Shakers.
Text Evidence: Daniel is gone.He crept away during the night and was not there in the boy's shop this morning when the bell rang.
Falling action: The first snow was December 11,1918.
Gloria tells Lydia where Daniel is.There was a blizzard in late April.
Text Evidence: Oxford Hills!That's not very far away!
Resolution:Lydia graduated at the top of her class and later got married and had two daughters.
Conflict
The Shakers Houses
The male Shakers
People Protecting Themselves From The Influenza
Theme
Character Analysis
Four Facts in 1918-1919
7:30 A.M-The bell on the Dwelling House rings to summon all to breakfast.
8:00-Morning prayers.We read (responsively) two Psalms,followed by bible readings,prayer,silent prayers and ending with the singing of a Shaker song.
8:30-Work begins.
11:30-Mid-day prayers.
12:00 P.M-Dinner.This is the main meal of the day.
1:00-Work begins.
6:00-Supper.
The United Society of Believers,commonly called Shakers,was founded in 1747,in
Manchester,England.
The influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than the Great War,known today as World War 1,at somewhere between 20 and 40 million people.
More people died of influenza in a single year than in four -years of the Black Death Plague from 1347 to 1351.