Part 1 of Essay
Little Porter Osborne, Jr. grew up on a farm in Georgia where the people own the land and the land, in turn, owns the people. In the novel, , Porter fights his way through adolescence and the depression, learning more about life every day from the big boys under the tree at lunch. Ferrol Sams is able to portray a realist ....

Part 2 of Essay
.... throughout the novel to give a sense of authenticity is diction. Although the members of the Osborne family speak properly, the farm hands (who were, up until a short time before the novel, slaves), speak in a southern dialect which portrays them as uneducated. A good example of this is when Buddy pleads with Porter to, “Keep yo head down, Sambo! For God’s sake, keep yo head down an be stiller’n you ever been in yo life befo!” The same words are used as would be used by an educated person, only they are sh ....