1. Ms. Aarsvold’s Class Example
The Land and the Water
Ms. Aarsvold’s Class Example
Shirley Ann Grau uses the elements of characterization
and setting to show readers that life is fragile and vulnerable, age makes no difference.

2. Characterization
Grau established the main character as growing young girl. She is old enough to work on her family’s boat with her sister, yet she is still young enough to spend hours just playing near the water. “We spent a couple of hours out there skinning our knees against the rough barnacled surface” (266). It is important to understand that this girl is not an adult yet. Without knowing this important piece of information it may be unclear why she is so shaken at the end of the story.

3. Characterization
By the end of the story we see a girl who can’t seem to grasp that three people close to her own age have died in the storm. She states “I kept wondering what it must be like to be dead and cold and down in the sand and mud with the eelgrass brushing you and the crabs bumping you and the fish—I had felt their little sucking mouths sometimes when I swam” (270). Previously death was not something that she had to worry about. Now it had hit close to home, and she may have wondered why her own life had been spared. The main character was confused at the thought that young people’s lives can be taken too. This quote also shows that she is shaken by the thought that she had swam in and was familiar with the very same water that had taken the other children’s lives.