Cold Mountain is a historical fiction novel written by Charles Frazier that tells the story of Inman, an injured deserter from the Confederate Army near the end of the civil war who travels for months to return to Ada Monroe, the love of his life. His novel is set in North Carolina in the mid-1860s, at the heart of the Civil War. However, it hardly describes a single battle in detail, but it is considered one of the greatest novels about the Civil War. By presenting the actual battles of the Civil War, primarily in flashback form from Inman's perspective, Cold Mountain takes a different route and discusses the Civil War by studying its impact on individuals rather than depicting the battles that took place. Therefore, it is both accurate and inaccurate to describe this novel as a Civil War novel. Frazier's novel Cold Mountain can teach us about the Civil War through the trauma it caused soldiers and those on the home front, both physically and emotionally. One way we can see the impact of the Civil War on ordinary citizens is by examining the experiences of Inman, Ada, and other characters during this time. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay At the beginning of the novel, Inman is in the hospital because of a neck injury he received during a fight. Not only does he suffer a physical injury, but during this time he also experiences emotional distress. Inman tries to remember how he got hurt and ended up in the hospital. He remembers fighting in a war near Petersburg when he was wounded. His two closest companions pulled him to the side to examine his wound and said a prayer over him because they were so sure he was going to die. Somehow, Inman survived and was taken to the field hospital and later transferred. He doesn't remember much from that time except the sound of flies, the extreme heat and the foul odors he experienced during his stay in the hospital. The Battle of Petersburg is described as one of the deadliest battles of the Civil War. Until then, nothing like this had happened during the war. Instead of giving an explicit account of the battle itself, Frazier takes a psychological approach and focuses on the trauma and disorientation Inman experienced during the battle. Throughout the rest of the novel, it is safe to say that there is not a single soldier who shows a sincere love for battle, for the South, or for the Union. The soldiers are seriously traumatized by what they experienced during the war. Not only does war cause psychological trauma to those who participate in it, but it creates a cascading effect on those on the home front who also experience trauma in different ways. We can see the emotional trauma happening on the home front through Ada Monroe's point of view. Even though Ada has never set foot on a battlefield, she begins to feel the trauma of civil war. The war forced men to leave their homes to fight, leaving women alone and unsure of what their future held. During this period, men primarily held positions of authority in the community, maintained the farms, and also ran the town's businesses. Few of these things were done strictly by all women. To make Ada's situation even worse, her father, Monroe, had recently died. Ada must now manage thefamily farm since the farm workers also left, either to fight in the war or to desert. She realizes that she is not equipped to run the farm alone and wonders if it is worth continuing since she has no use for the things the farm offers her. Faced with the very real possibility of starving to death on her farm, Ada must accept that her education, while important, has left her completely unprepared to survive during the Civil War. We can begin to understand why Ada feels so desperate and emotionally scarred by this experience. She depended on her father all her life to support her and now he is dead. Without his help or the farm workers, it seems to her that she would simply have to give up on life. Ada will have to learn the ways of the farm to survive, but she is afraid of everything she will have to do. In the epilogue to Cold Mountain, Frazier points out that when Ada reads a story to the children, she has difficulty turning the pages. Ada has since lost the tip of one of her fingers while chopping wood. Ada's injury seems to represent the physical and emotional trauma that Inman's death left in her life. Just like many other women and families who lost loved ones during this time, Ada lost Inman just when she thought she had him back. This great loss of life and change in lifestyle is creating trauma on the home front and has affected almost every American citizen during this time. Additionally, the things people usually turn to in times of crisis, like family or religion, no longer exist by the mid-1860s: the only priests or relatives in the book are corrupt, absent, or dead. Ada's father, Monroe, was the town priest before he passed away, leaving the town without a priest. Inman meets another priest named Veasey while walking along the Deep River. Veasey is dressed in black and walks with a horse carrying an unconscious woman. Inman runs to the man and demands Veasey tell him what is happening or he will kill him. Veasey boasts to Inman that it would be a sin to kill him because he is a priest and a man of God. Veasey explains that he drugged the women to take and kill her because she was pregnant with his child. Veasey didn't want the townspeople to find out because they would ban it. This leaves the town of Cold Mountain without a priest since Monroe's death and a priest corrupted only for his own good, leaving the home front without a trustworthy minister to turn to at the moment. Just when Ada's father died, Ruby explains that she never had a relationship with her father, whose name is Stobrod. Ruby's mother died during childbirth and Stobrod makes sure Ruby doesn't forget her since his mother's death devastated him so much. Stobrod never physically harmed Ruby, but he didn't take care of her either. At the start of the Civil War, Stobrod leaves to fight, leaving Ruby to fend for herself without warning. Leaving those on the home front without any form of comfort to turn to during this time other than themselves, causing enormous amounts of physical and emotional stress on everyone. Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a personalized paper from our expert now. An immense part of the devastation of the Civil War was largely psychological, as can be seen throughout Frazier's novel Cold Mountain. However, it wasn't just psychologically traumatic, it was physically traumatic. In the final chapters of the novel, Inman is chased by the Home Guard and killed. Many Americans lost their lives during the war..