In this chapter, Gene travels to Leper's house after he escapes from the war. When Gene is arriving at Leper's house, he describes at being warm and comfortable. ", and the houses are fragile havens, unforgettably comfortable, simple though they are, just because of their warmth"(Knowles, 139). In this quote Gene is telling the reader that Leper's area in which he lives in is cold on the outside but warm and comfortable on the inside. This relates to Gene because that is his personality and who he is as a person. Also, he has described the landscape in which Leper's house is on. He says that it is a white snow covering the hills, and there was sun shining down onto the land. He describes it as a beautiful place. John Knowles uses these details to describe how pretty the land is, and then how within the land there is a huge war going on and a man who has escaped from it. Gene also uses the word glory which relates to the poems that we read in class. Glory is one of the things you get from war, but death and fear are others. John Knowles uses the landscape and details to describe the beauty and hate of the land and war. He also uses it to describe Gene.
Monday, October 10, 2011
Assignment 9, question 1 Chris Bornhorst
1.) Gene spends the first part of the chapter traveling to Leper’s house. Choose two or three phrases of description about the landscape (location, weather, temperature) and explore how Knowles is using them. Why does he include these details here and why at this time? What does it reveal about Gene at this time?
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I agree with you Chris, especially on how the weather relates to Leper’s house and Gene. The weather is so beautiful, but at the same time incredibly cold. Knowles makes the weather almost mock Gene, as if saying he can’t enjoy it as whenever the day is nice something bad seems to happen to Gene, in this case what happened with Leper later on, which is reflected in the bitter cold. He also shows the weather to show the conditions that Gene would be living in for the next few years when Gene would be in the army, giving us a preview of the dreary future pattern of Gene’s life, always waiting to join the action but never getting there. “That night I made for the first time the kind of journey which later became the monotonous routine of my life: traveling through an unknown countryside from one unknown settlement to another. The next year this became the dominant activity, or rather passivity, of my army career, not fighting, not marching, but this kind of nighttime ricochet; for as it turned out I never got to the war” (Knowles 138). I also agree with you when you talk about how peaceful and undisturbed the whole land looked, as if this whole community had somehow managed to escape the war, as if they all had effortlessly achieved what others wanted so badly, and what Gene and the others had only managed to achieve for a brief moment: a separate peace.
ReplyDeleteJJ Ma