Read the excerpt from "Choice: A Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” by Alice Walker.We loved the land and worked the land, but we never owned it; and even if we bought land, as my great-grandfather did after the Civil War, it was always in danger of being taken away, as his was, during the period following Reconstruction. Alice Walker, Choice: A Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., an excerpt from IN SEARCH OF OUR MOTHERS' GARDENS (Harcourt, Inc, 1983), 142-145. Reprinted by permission of The Joy Harris Literary Agency, Inc.
The sentence contrasts the family’s love and labor for the land with their lack of ownership: they “loved” and “worked” it but “never owned it.” This balanced opposition is antithesis. The land is being discussed literally, rather than as a part standing for a whole or a related idea, so synecdoche and metonymy do not fit.
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