The Killer Angels Analysis

At the time of the battle, Gettysburg was a quiet college town—actually, it still is today. It's surrounded by rolling Pennsylvanian farmland, a Lutheran seminary, and some hills and ridges, whic...

Shaara switches from person to person, freely entering the minds of different characters at will. Usually, he confines himself to the perspective of one character per chapter, but sometimes he'll m...

The Killer Angels is historical fiction because it's… fiction… about history. No great mystery there. And on a similar note, it's a war drama, because it's… a drama… about war. But The Kill...

Shaara is respectful toward his subject. He doesn't heap any hero-worship at the feet of General Lee, for example, but he acknowledges the real heroism that characterized the battle, for instance i...

The second to last sentence of the book is a good example of Shaara's frequently poetic and lyrical style: The true rain came in a monster wind, and the storm broke in blackness over the hills and...

At one point, Joshua Chamberlain remembers reciting a speech from Hamlet to his father, in which Hamlet states that man is "in action how like an angel!" Hearing this, Chamberlain's father says tha...

The Killer Angels features several epigraphs:"When men take up arms to set other men free, there is something sacred and holy in the warfare." – Woodrow Wilson"I hate the idea of causes, and if I...

After Pickett's Charge fails and the Confederates have lost the battle, Tom Chamberlain says to Joshua that slavery is definitely the cause of the war: "Well, then, I don't care how much political...

Even it deals with profound issues and themes, The Killer Angels is pretty easy reading. There's no crazy vocabulary or James Joyce-style wordplay, and the books moves at a clip. The only thing you...

We see into the mind of the spy who reports the Union position to Lee and Longstreet. Harrison (that's the spy) reports to Lee, while on the Union side, General John Buford's cavalry help hold back...

For Joshua Chamberlain, The Killer Angels is definitely a "voyage and return" story. Though he's personally not done with the war—and actually would later be wounded in combat—he's made it th...

The armies try to get into position. A spy, Harrison, lets the Confederates know that the Union is getting closer. Lee and Longstreet scramble to make gains, but General Ewell wimps out and refuses...

Michael Shaara worked as a boxer and a science-fiction writer (among other occupations) before writing The Killer Angels. (Source.) Confederate General Harry Heth claimed that he accidentally engag...

There's precious little sex in The Killer Angels. Actually, there aren't any female characters to speak of. There is this: Joshua Chamberlain has a sexy dream with his wife in it at one point, but...

Aristotle (4.6.2) As You Like It (4.3.32) "The Charge of the Light Brigade" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (2.4.42) Hamlet (1. 1. 9, 2.4.28)Henry V (1.1.5)"Kathleen Malvourneen" (3.5.201)"...