Marked by Fire Analysis

Marked by Fire is set in Ponca City, Oklahoma. Not only is this a real place, it's where Joyce Carol Thomas grew up. While Thomas was born several years before the fictional Abyssinia, she and her...

Though we spend pretty much the entire book with Abyssinia (except for that pesky first chapter, in which she hasn't been born yet), and the plot is definitely focused on Abby's coming of age proce...

As is often the case, this coming of age story is written for young adult readers—young adults are pretty familiar with the whole coming-of-age experience, so it makes sense that stories about th...

We often use more than one word to describe the tone of a book, but in the case of Marked by Fire, the book is resolutely, steadfastly, unrelentingly hopeful. Hopeful is truly the best word to desc...

You don't have to read long before you see Thomas's descriptive style in action—she regularly busts out lush description, scooping readers up into the story by letting them vividly understand the...

Believe it or not, Marked by Fire is named after Abyssinia. Say what? Check it out:In Ponca City, in the cool of the evening, the older people invariably sat out on their porches to reiterate the e...

Chapter 3"Whose Child are you?""I am the daughter of patience and strength."Chapter 5"I washed my face with the velvet cloth of laughter."Chapter 6"I sat before the fire of a woman who kept her fin...

As the book comes to a close, Trembling Sally has died in the fire she set trying to kill Abby and Lily Norene's daughters, and Abby and the girls are tucked safely inside the old Barker home, surr...

There is nothing tough about reading this book—well, except the subject matter at times. That can be really tough, what with all the violence smattered throughout Marked by Fire's pages (this is...

This Tornado Loves YouAfter narrowly surviving a tornado, Patience gives birth to Abyssinia Jackson, our leading lady for the rest of the book. Abby leads a pretty delightful childhood—she is sur...

Joyce Carol Thomas doesn't just write about Ponca City—she grew up there. (Source.) Not sure how many awards you've won, but Thomas has won over thirty for her book. Whoa. (Source.) Though Marked...

"Steamy" doesn't feel like quite the right word to describe the sex in this book—there's never any romance or tenderness, and instead just rape. Abyssinia is raped as a child and Lily Norene is r...

The Bible (Throughout) The Black Dispatch (6.14, 6.62; 23.1, 23.13, 23.21)Gulliver's Travels (7.20)Alice in Wonderland (7.20)The Wizard of Oz (7.20)Little Women(7.20)Paul Laurence Dunbar (7.27; 22....