The River Between Us Themes

We can't overestimate how huge the theme of warfare is in this book. The Civil War is the reason everything happens. It's why Calinda and Delphine go north, Noah loses his arm, Mama goes mad, and m...

As Tilly points out often in The River Between Us, Delphine is a master of deceit, though not exactly of lying. She never lies at all—well, except that one time about her nonexistent aunt in St....

It's fair to say that gender often comes up in books about war. Historically, men's and women's experiences of war have been very different. And, because men have historically been in charge of pol...

By the end of The River Between Us, race turns out to be a much bigger deal than we thought it was at the beginning. Not only do racial issues force Delphine and Calinda upriver from New Orleans, b...

Literally speaking, we're dealing with two times in The River Between Us. We open and close with Howard's frame story, which occurs in 1916, but the bulk of the book is Tilly's main story, which oc...

In The River Between Us, Tilly's story is set in 1861, and by 1916, the main players who are still alive are between 70 and 80 years old. That doesn't seem as ancient as Howard describes it, but we...

The River Between Us is set during the Civil War, so it's no surprise that the North and South are contrasted. We see the contrast mostly through individuals—boys who drill for one side or the o...

In The River Between Us, two characters have the gift. You know, second sight, a sixth sense, prophecy, visions, seeing—whatever we call it, it means they can see the future and the past. Cass an...