59 pages • 1 hour read
Leif EngerPeace Like a River
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2001A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Essay Topics
What aspects of Reuben’s life and environment influence his perspective as the story’s narrator? Consider things like age, hindsight, socioeconomics, religion, and family dynamics. In what ways does his unique perspective enhance or detract from the reading experience?
Miracles play an important role in this story. Why do you think Leif Enger chose to make Reuben the only witness to many of Jeremiah’s miracles? Why isn’t Jeremiah able to cure Reuben’s asthma sooner, in spite of all the other miracles he brings about? What do these aspects of the story say about belief or faith?
How might the absence of Davy, Reuben, and Swede’s mother from their lives have influenced the Lands’ family dynamics and the choices they make throughout the story? What social norms of the time contribute to this effect? Provide specific examples from the text to support your answer.
The two main settings of the book are in Minnesota and North Dakota. How would you characterize each of these settings as the Lands experience them? What does each say about the relationship between the individual and the natural world? How is the setting used to develop the story’s conflicts and themes?
What conflicts can you identify in the novel? Which conflicts have clear “good” and “bad” sides, and which are more complex? Choose one of these conflicts and discuss how it contributes to Reuben’s transformation as a character and to the book’s thematic messages.
In what ways does Reuben’s asthma contribute to his characterization? Consider aspects of character such as authenticity, complexity, motivation, transformation, etc. How would the story be different if Reuben had a more stigmatized illness, like a mood disorder? How do you think other characters in the novel would treat him?
In Chapter 12, “At War with This Whole World,” Reuben and Swede aren’t sure what will happen if and when they find Davy. Do you think Jeremiah does? What is his intention? What information does the narrative provide about Jeremiah that supports your conclusion?
Peace Like a River takes place in the early 1960s. How have social and legal views toward self-defense, especially within one’s home, changed between then and now?
Heteroglossia refers to “a diversity of voices, styles of discourse, or points of view in a literary work and especially a novel” (“Heteroglossia.” Merriam-Webster). Examine Enger’s use of the poetic form and Wild West tales in Swede’s Sunny Sundown epic. Discuss how the epic makes use of heteroglossia to either advance the historic social intentions of these forms, or to adapt them for new purposes.
(Advanced students: Read Mikhail Bakhtin’s “Discourse in the Novel.” Apply Bakhtin’s theories to Enger’s use of literary allusions in Peace Like a River.)
Related Titles
By Leif Enger
