Montana 1948 Themes

The book "Montana 1948" by Larry Watson is a story happened in a small place, Montana, which mainly focuses on justice verses family loyalty, the need for power and the racism. With the exposing of Frank’s crime which is rape and murder, the serious conflict between Wesley’s family and his father’s has raised. Wesley decided to use the power to do good things which is sending Frank to the jail, no matter who the person and his or her relations are, people must pay for their crimes, (pg. #150). However, Julian tried to protect his son by abusing his power. This issue ended with the suicide of Frank. So, the power and control contests between Grandfather and his son, Wesley, is the most critical factor that lead to the tragedy in Montana.

The

Form the novel, “They couldn’t arrest us – we are the law!” (pg. #66), this shows that Frank were protected and get benefit from the power Julian had over the whole town. He believed that he is above the law with the power of his father over the whole town. No matter how bad a thing he done, it is impossible for them to be punished or arrested. So, even people in the town may know about Frank’s criminal issue, they would never talk about it in public. In the other words, they all agreed to keep this crime secret. That made Julian felt that he got the total control of power under any situation to decide what is just or not, so that Frank could be protected well. Because of the total power and control of Julian over the whole town and his family, the tragedy happened in Montana has been stored up for the

And the contest for power had begun between Julian’s family and Wesley’s family which shows in the novel from page 111 to page 115 and from page 123 to 131. After Wesley arrested Frank and locked him in the basement, Julian tried to use his power to protect Frank by commanding Wesley to free Frank and inciting his employees to bust Frank loose. However, Wesley did not follow what his father want him to do as before, because he wanted to protect the justice and his own family. He started to subvert the power and control from Julian by using his own power as the sheriff in Montana. He rejected to free Frank and called his father to stop trying to control him. The conflict of power between the original holder – Julian, and the fighter – Wesley leads to the tragedy to exposed and built