Storming Heaven: the Land before Time Essay

In the book Storming Heaven by Denise Giardina, education, and the lack there of, plays one of the largest roles in the character's lives. At this time in West Virginia, where the book is set, many children had to leave school and actually go into the coalmines, as Rondal Lloyd did, or work on the family farm. Racial ignorance is also a key element Giardina confronts in the novel. The characters, chief and secondary, equally cultural and racially bland, pass on their beliefs and therefore help to maintain the continuous circle of inequality that carries on even today. Political knowledge, at least on the national and state level, is also lacking within the little town of Annadel. With this
Although Talcott ended the game by shooting the ball out of the air, everyone present must have honestly learned a valuable lesson that day because later on when the war breaks out the white men, the immigrants, and the black men band together to rise up against their common enemy, the coal companies.

Additionally, the majority of the citizens in and around Annadel are politically inept to the goings on in local, state, and federal government. This is evident in their belief that the United States government would help them in their efforts to join the union and stop the treachery of American Coal. The first step would be to request National Guard services and protection from the state level. The miners and union organizers did not know this because they never learned the chain of command in school because they quit as children to help support their families and keep from being evicted from the coal conglomerates land. Therefore, it is conceivable that the entire series of battles during the mine wars could have been avoided if the local people had an education that was in a sense not allowed. Surely, the politically uninformed people of southern West Virginia would have been able to unionize in peace if they had been educated in the correct process instead of the "go into the mines, come out, find a wife, have kids and die" mentality that grips the region even today.

A very wise man