I have always felt that this story is universal. When I began to understand the details of the history, I felt that the most compelling aspect was not what happened, but what continues to happen and how it is denied.
What you compose with is neither here nor there, you compose with words, or you compose with stone plants and trees, or you compose with events; the Sheriff's officer, or whatever.
Simplicity is an acquired taste. Mankind, left free, instinctively complicates life.