Montana 1948 by Larry Watson

573 Words2 Pages

In Montana 1948, written by Larry Watson, the events that took place irrevocably changed David Hayden’s life in several ways, both good and bad. The novel Montana 1948, is written from the point of view of David, the son of the Mercer County’s sheriff, Wesley Hayden and features many events which are indelible from his memory. The death of Little Marie Soldier, David’s housekeeper, was the first event, which would ultimately change David’s life. After her death, David experiences great discomfort in his own home, as he believed that there was “death in the house” and that “every door seemed to require a bit more effort to open and close. There always seemed to be a sound – a whisper – on the edge of your hearing, something you couldn’t quite make out.” The death of Marie also altered the way that he thought about his father, in that before he thought that he was not a true sheriff, saying that he “didn’t even look like a proper sheriff” and that he carried “the wrong kind of gun for a sheriff.” However, after Marie passed away, David went on to realise that the “har...

Show More
Related

  • Contested Plains by Elliot West

    1191 Words  | 3 Pages

    There are many ways in which we can view the history of the American West. One view is the popular story of Cowboys and Indians. It is a grand story filled with adventure, excitement and gold. Another perspective is one of the Native Plains Indians and the rich histories that spanned thousands of years before white discovery and settlement. Elliot West’s book, Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers and the Rush to Colorado, offers a view into both of these worlds. West shows how the histories of both nations intertwine, relate and clash all while dealing with complex geological and environmental challenges. West argues that an understanding of the settling of the Great Plains must come from a deeper understanding, a more thorough knowledge of what came before the white settlers; “I came to believe that the dramatic, amusing, appalling, wondrous, despicable and heroic years of the mid-nineteenth century have to be seen to some degree in the context of the 120 centuries before them” .

    Read More

  • Smoke on the Mountain, Connie Ray and Alan Bailey

    1140 Words  | 3 Pages

    Smoke on the Mountain did an excellent job at utilizing each of the seven components of a play in the production of the show. The first two components are plot and characters. The plot is the actions in a show and the characters are the people who carry out the actions of the plot and they both require the other in order to be developed correctly. When Vera Sanders explains to the congregation why they are all similar to June bugs she is developing her character and in turn, developing the plot. She begins by telling a story when a June bug flew into her lemonade one evening while she was sitting on her porch. She was incredibly upset about this because that June bug contaminated her drink. Her emotions, thoughts, and actions about this ordeal were logical and believable to the audience which allows her character to be developed. She goes on to explain how, like the June bug that flew into her lemonade, we are all inadvertently flying into the drink of sin. This correlation between us and a June bug started out very strange and confusing but through logical steps and details given by Vera, we were able to make the connection and understand her reasoning. Believable actions and stories like this are what build the plot. This is why characters and plot go together. The next component Aristotle listed is the theme; the abstracted subtext (aka the hidden message) in a show. There were two themes in—overcoming tribulations and sin and becoming unified as a community through song. The vast amount of songs that were performed during the show made me believe that unity through song was the central theme. Just like the community in the play, when I was participating in this show, I felt the power of music through and found myself on the e...

    Read More

  • Montana 1948

    726 Words  | 2 Pages

    David Hayden, the son of Wesley and Gail, was the most loyal character in the book. One day David noticed Uncle frank walking out of the house in the middle of the day. David was an intelligent young boy who knew that something was off. Later that day David heard the news that Marie Little Soldier had died and it was not of natural causes. Guilt comes with loyalty. When a person witnesses a scene that was unlawful they are put into the middle of a paradigm. In this case, David, who knew Uncle Frank killed Marie, felt he was the only witness. For a twelve year old boy, David knew himself very well. He was able to find that his loyalty was to Marie and the rest of the family. Although David knew where his loyalty was he was sure that not everyone did know. "I wasn't protecting her-I no longer had any illusions that I could play that role-but I stayed out of loyalty.”(149). In spite of the fact that David had already designated his Loyalty to his family, he felt his loyalty was tested during the investigation. Davids instincts told him that the right thing to do was superset his father, but with his mother encouraging him to abandon his father, David felt he should neglect his instincts. For example, when the four men were sent by his grandfather to retrieve Unc...

    Read More

  • Irony in Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton

    1031 Words  | 3 Pages

    Edith Wharton’s brief, yet tragic novella, Ethan Frome, presents a crippled and lonely man – Ethan Frome – who is trapped in a loveless marriage with a hypochondriacal wife, Zenobia “Zeena” Frome. Set during a harsh, “sluggish” winter in Starkfield, Massachusetts, Ethan and his sickly wife live in a dilapidated and “unusually forlorn and stunted” New-England farmhouse (Wharton 18). Due to Zeena’s numerous complications, they employ her cousin to help around the house, a vivacious young girl – Mattie Silver. With Mattie’s presence, Starkfield seems to emerge from its desolateness, and Ethan’s vacant world seems to be awoken from his discontented life and empty marriage. And so begins Ethan’s love adventure – a desperate desire to have Mattie as his own; however, his morals along with his duty to Zeena and his natural streak of honesty hinder him in his ability to realize his own dreams. Throughout this suspenseful and disastrous novella, Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton effectively employs situational irony enabling readers to experience a sudden shock and an unexpected twist of events that ultimately lead to a final tragedy in a living nightmare.

    Read More

  • Woody Guthrie's Song 'This Land Was Made For You And Me'

    552 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Great Depression, which occurred during the 1920s and 1930s, was a time period of extreme economic crisis affecting all American citizens in some sort of way. During the Great Depression, Americans questioned their future, the government’s role in containing the economic turmoil, and the president at the time Herbert Hoover. Woody Guthrie’s song “This Land Was Made for You and Me” expresses some of the feelings many Americans experienced during this time period.

    Read More

  • A Child Called It By Dave Pelzer

    831 Words  | 2 Pages

    At first, David cares that his mother treats him badly. After awhile, he doesn’t care and becomes apathetic.

    Read More

  • John Green's Looking For Alaska, By John Green

    624 Words  | 2 Pages

    John Green’s book, Looking for Alaska, is a thrilling and heartening novel that will keep you engrossed in the book and will never let you put the book down. It is a book about an righteous and a wonderful tale of how teens survive despite having difficult issues in their own lives and relate to other people. The book is on the story of Miles Halter, a teen who has a great passion with people’s famous last words. He is a teen who does not have many friends, so he makes a decision to go to a boarding school named Culver Creek in Alabama. He makes many friends, rivals and most of all he realizes who he is. In Culver Creek, he meets his roommate Chip Martin and Chip’s friends Takumi Hikohito, Lara Buterskaya, and Alaska Young. All of them including Miles, become close friends. While Miles is building friendship with everyone, he starts to develop a huge crush on Alaska, though Alaska has a boyfriend who is Jake. In the book, situations become different, tensions rise and everyone gets to learn themselves in a variety of ways in the end.The use of language by Green makes the book more re...

    Read More

  • Speak By Mary Hahn Summary

    633 Words  | 2 Pages

    Daniel is furious about moving into an old run down house on a farm in West Virginia. He use to live the average life, he had tons of friends, was popular, belonged to a country club, lived in a very very nice home, what could go wrong. He had to leave everything and start over with his family. He has one sister named Erica who is not social at all. She is just a kid around 7, while Daniel is around 12. Daniel feels so alone while, his family starts to pull apart. Not only does his family become broke and mean but he has no friends, everyone hates him and Erica. People at school and on the bus start telling Erica and Daniel stories about their house. Erica soon becomes frighten by the stories that are being told so, Daniel has to try to comfort her every day. But,

    Read More

  • The Rough Riders

    3724 Words  | 8 Pages

    The Rough Riders Towards the end of the nineteenth century, William McKinley defeated Grover Cleveland for the presidency and there was a huge push for the United States of America to expand beyond its continental boarders. (Lorant, p. 281) With an enthusiasm for a new urge for international Manifest Destiny, the American people wanted to match Europe^s imperial power by making America^s weight felt around the world. (Boger p.714) The extent of expansionism was felt in the Pacific Ocean with the occupation of the Hawaiian Islands and Guam, but the most famous example of Americas enthusiasm for international assertiveness came in

    Read More

  • Summary Of Stitches: A Memoir By David Small

    1629 Words  | 4 Pages

    David’s illustrations shows an intricate but vivid and painful memory of his childhood. His mother, Betty influenced his life in a way that he could not understand at the time. He did not understand the reasons behind some of her attitudes or the peculiar way that she communicated with him. In the first pages of the book David stated: “Mama had her little cough… once

    Read More

  • The Forty-Niners

    571 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Mountain Men had a very rare lifestyle. They ate small animals such as,rat,squirrels.Their most important food source was acorns. During autumn fall, acorns were harvested in large number of women of the tribe. The women would do all the work sometimes. The California tribes had many ways to prepare acorns. The most popular methods of preparing a acorn involved boiling the acorns before making them into soup. They lived in houses similar to the Indians in the Great Basin, but their structures were larger. Their houses were dome structures, covered in grass, and with an opening in the roof for ventilation and light. I can see myself living like the Mountain men because you can experience the things that these incredible people did in their life and bring it to mine.

    Read More

  • Woody Guthrie's Song This Land Is Your Land

    367 Words  | 1 Pages

    Woody Guthrie wrote tons of songs. The song he is known for is ¨This Land is Your Land¨. He played all over the USA. Every time he played it he changed the lyrics. His inspirational quote and This Land is Your Land are similar but they are also different.

    Read More

  • 1968 Olympics In Mexico City

    597 Words  | 2 Pages

    “In life, there is a beginning and an end, the beginning does not matter. The end does not matter. All that matters is what you do in between- whether you are prepared to do what it takes to make change,” said John Carlos, one of the two individuals who believed there was an adjustment that needed happen in the United States. 1968 America, our country, still had much discrimination and segregation, but the ones who got the worst of it, were the African Americans. Two Olympic athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, realized their needed to be a change and what better way to honor their fellow segregated Americans than to show them they are not alone and that change is possible.

    Read More

  • 'Looking For Alaska' By John Green

    365 Words  | 1 Pages

    The novel, “Looking For Alaska” by John Green is an extremely meaningful book that I have read countless times. Reading this book was important to me seeing how the pages are written in a particularly interesting style that I had never experienced before. I thought this novel was intriguing considering the story line behind two of the main characters, Miles “Pudge” Halter and Alaska Young. The striking way this story was written was in two sections, a before and an after. The entire first half of the novel I was wondering what it had meant by “before”. I happened to be on edge wondering what event would happen since it counted down to the event with headings such as, “one hundred thirty six days before”. Those headings divided each day in Pudges

    Read More

  • Walt Disneyland In The Early 1950's

    110 Words  | 1 Pages

    In the early 1950's, Walt Disney began designing a huge theme park to be built near Los Angeles. He wanted Disneyland to have a lot of entertainment for the parents and their children but also have some educational aspects. He hired a research firm to find an optimal location in southern California that would be suitable for a large theme park. They studied factors such as growth in population, weather patterns and transportation options. Farming land was bought in the city of Anaheim, about 25 miles south of Los Angeles. The 200 acre property consisted mostly of orange trees. Construction began in July 1954. One year late summer of

    Read More

More about Montana 1948 by Larry Watson

Open Document