Conflicts

Some of the conflicts in this book include Man v. Man - because of the fact that Nelle is bullied at college by some of the sorority girls, but there are other points where Man vs. Self come into play because the book notes that Nelle's friend Truman ends up struggling with alcohol and drugs - which, sadly, ends up killing him. Man vs. Nature comes into play because there is a point where a tornado lands near Montgomery, Alabama and kills many people. Nelle is not involved with this but is indirectly involved when one of the people in her dorm is afraid of a tornado striking there - and so Nelle stays with the girl.


I looked up things about this tornado - and found some information.  This is a list of tornadoes in 1945 from Alabama - and one of the tornadoes on this list fits the bill for the one described in the story. This occurred February 12, 1945. Strangely enough, it wasn't the strongest tornado - but it had the most fatalities. 26! In fact, all the tornadoes for that year happened on February 12 except for one. This is somewhat odd but as you can see, there would have been something to be scared about.
The tornado I am looking at is in larger print than the other tornadoes.

Alabama Tornado Database
1945 Tornado Occurrences (8)
Year	Month	Day	Time (CST)	County	Damage Scale	Path Length (Miles)	Fatalities	Injuries	Location
1945	2	22	0030	Coosa	F2	4.0	0	0	Kellyton 17 homes and sevral barns damaged.
1945	2	12	2205	Jefferson	F2	0.5	0	1	Birmingham-Shades Mountain 7 buildings were destroyed and 6 were heavily damaged.
1945	2	12	1945	Chilton	F3	1.0	1	8	SE Stanton One large home and barn were destroyed.
1945	2	12	1930	Lee	F2	0.5	0	1	S Opelika 2 barns and 4 buildings were destroyed.
1945	2	12	1830	Macon	F3	0.5	0	2	E Tuskegee 5 small homes were destroyed.
1945	2	12	1800	Bullock	F2	8.0	0	9	9.0 W Union Springs-Thompson 4 homes were destroyed in Thompson and 4 others were damaged.
1945	2	12	1722	Montgomery	F3	13.0	26	293	5.0 SW Montgomery-Chisholm At least 100 homes were destroyed. 30 homes were demolished in Chisolm and deaths occurred in 15 different homes.
1945	2	12	1630	Sumter	F4	18.0	11	63	York-Livingston Several deaths occurred in homes along the path. A train derailed over the Sucarnoochee River. The conductor and a fireman were killed.

If you would like to view this chart in its entirety, just follow this link. http://www.srh.noaa.gov/bmx/?n=tornadodb_194

Works Cited

National Weather Service . Alabama Tornadoes 1945. 16 April 2010. 29 May 2011 <http://www.srh.noaa.gov/bmx/?n=tornadodb_1945>.