Cold Mountain | The Characters’ Struggle for Survival
Perkins is a professor of American and English literature and film. In this essay, she examines the characters’ struggle for physical and emotional survival.
When Inman decides to desert the Confederate Army and walk back to Ada and his home on Cold Mountain, he faces serious impediments to his safety, almost as grave as those he encountered on the Civil War battlefield. Physical survival, though, is not his most challenging task. He must also survive the emotional damage wrought by the war, which he fears has made him “so lost in bitterness and anger that [he] could not find [his] way back.” Ada faces her own physical and emotional trials while Inman is gone. Although hers are not as severe as Inman’s, they also ultimately require...
[The entire page is 1927 words long]
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