Gilead Analysis

A lot happens in this small, fictional town in Iowa. It's home to a number of Christian denominations, including (at one time) a black congregation. The Underground Railroad was active in the area,...

Gilead is the long letter of a father to his son, so it's no surprise that the narration we get is first person. Everything in the narrative is told from the perspective of John Ames, our protagoni...

"I've often been sorry to see a night end," Ames writes to his son, "even while I have loved seeing the dawn come. Tree sound different at night, and they smell different too" (1.6.1-2).Gilead is a...

John Ames, the narrator, is a preacher. As you might expect, his narration reads like a good sermon: lovingly expressed, intimate and personal, and accessibly theological. He'll transition from an...

John Ames has a lot on his mind and little time to put it to paper. He's written thousands of pages of sermons, and he's not about to rehash those here. He's on a mission to speak to his son from b...

Gilead is a region mentioned in the Bible, home to a balm, or a medicinal perfume. In the novel, Gilead is the name of the fictional small Iowa town where most of the action takes place. It's the h...

Jack Boughton confesses to John Ames the reason he's home: he can't provide for his wife and child, a family he has not told his father or siblings about. Jack's habits, including alcoholism, preve...

Gilead follows the epistolary novel form: it's a long letter from a father to his son. While not too challenging in terms of language and style, the story doesn't follow a specific order or chronol...

Glory tells Ames that Jack Boughton has called from St. Louis and plans to come home. Ames feels anxious at this news—Jack is the favorite son of Robert Boughton, and the most troubled. In his le...

Gilead follows Booker's Voyage and Return plot but with a twist: it's told from the perspective of the "other world."John Ames (Jack) Boughton returns home, which to him is like returning to the sc...

Jack Boughton returns to Gilead. His arrival brings old memories and new concerns to a dying John Ames, whose wife and son will soon be left alone. When Jack befriends the Ames family, apparently w...

On his Facebook page, President Obama lists Gilead among his favorite books. (Source.) Gilead won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. (Source.) Gilead is the name of a hill country mentioned in th...

There's mention of premarital sex and cohabitation, but no explicit description of sexual activity. We wouldn't expect it, this story being the letter of a 76-year-old Christian preacher to his six...

Abraham (1.2.7)Isaac (1.2.7)Augustine (1.2.26)John Calvin (1.2.26)Mary Magdalene (1.2.56)John the Baptist (1.2.59)Hagar and Ishmael (1.8.9)Ludwig Feuerbach (1.2.34)Diary of a Country Priest (1.3.6)...