Character Analysis: A River Runs Through It

When the Canal was built towns all along the route from Buffalo to Albany prospered from the revenue and the attraction the Canal brought with it. Whether the Canal was being used for business people, immigrants, settlers of the region, or tourists, the border-towns all had some appeal to these persons. After some time the state was continually asked to expand the Canal from the original route to include connecting canal routes. However, the same towns along the route from Buffalo to Albany had already been established along the lines of the original canal. These towns would need to be relocated in order to obey these new requests. This presented a major problem because the people in these towns had formed a life around the Canal and many of them made their income based of the Canal. The inhabitants of the towns changed their mentality from not wanting the Canal to invade on their lives, to it being an essential part of their lives they depended upon.

This is a book about a young woman named Sundara who is from Cambodia. Chamroeun is a guy who Sundaras parents want her to marry because it is custom in Cambodia that the parents pick who their children will marry. Sundara falls in love with Chamroeun but that has to end because he goes off to fight in the war. It is about how she lived with a group of people (tribe) and one day Khmer Rouge came and tried to take over their village, Phnom Penh. Sundara, her family and the rest of Phnom Penh ran to a boat and they sailed away, planning to go to America. Back then people from different countries were lead to believe that America was a perfect place and you could be or do anything you desired, well that obviously isn't the

Often times the Macleans went fishing for the "healing effects of cool waters" and to spend time with the family (78). When something bothered them or when they couldn't figure out their problems, Norman and Paul went fishing. Norman states, "It is not fly fishing if you are not looking for answers to questions" (42). Fishing was always there and an answer to the solution. Sometimes it was the correct answer and sometimes more clues were needed for the question to be

The Secret River by Kate Grenville focuses on the characterisation of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians and social expectations each may have in the 19th Century. Throughout the entirety of the novel Grenville discusses characters and how each adjust to their new environments whether it be the Aborigines or the non–Aboriginal Australians.

Does Vinny really mean it when he says Joe-Boy is his best friend In the story, “The ravine”? Vinny and Joe-Boy are 15 year old boys that were born in Hawaii. They are heading to the ravine to swim and jump off a 50 foot precipice.Vinny and Joe-Boy are best friends . Also Joe-Boy and Vinny are different that doesn’t mean they’re completely different, they are still similar in a few ways, they might be friends , but they are also very different and still alike.

“Beauty” by Tony Hoagland was written in 1998. In this poem, Hoagland expresses his feelings on how women care too much about physical appearances. Throughout his poem he tells the story through the eyes of a brother of a girl who learns to love herself for who she is. Hoagland’s poem stresses the importance that beauty goes deeper than the surface. Throughout his poem, Tony Hoagland uses many literary devices to perfect his poem. These devices include the message, tone, imagery, figures of speech, and personification.

Characters in the text The Secret River by Kate Grenville represent a variation of attitudes and views towards the colonisation of Australia and the Aboriginal Australians. While many characters are indecisive about their opinion on the natives, some characters have a clear mind-set on how they are to be treated. The characters of Thomas Blackwood and Smasher Sullivan represent the two very different sides of the moral scale, and the other characters fit between these sides. Smasher is a vicious, cold-hearted man who shows no respect or humanity towards the Aboriginals. On the other hand, Blackwood’s character contrasts Smasher with his humanity and general respect to the original owners of their new home. The

Life can bring unexpected events that individuals might not be prepared to confront. This was the case in the short story “On The Rainy River” written by Tim O’Brien. Young Tim is drafted to the military to fight the American War in Vietnam. He faces the conflict of whether he should or should not go to war after being drafted. The thought of giving up the future he has worked so hard for and instead fight a war “for uncertain reasons” terrifies him. He must make the agonizing decision of whether to pursue his personal desire and in turn be shamed by society or conform, sacrificing his ideals in the process.

As Paul matured, he converted, from using the common four-count, to something a bit more innovative, shadow casting. The technique wasn't the only thing he altered. He also caught fish for quality, which leaked with palpability when he told Norman he aspired to

A River Runs Through It is, deservedly so, the work that Norman Maclean will always be best known for. His 1976 semi-autobiographical novella tells what is really only a brief piece of the life story of two brothers who grew up together in the Montana wilderness; but the scope of this timeless tale of fishing, family, and religion extends beyond just a few months. It touches on the entirety of the complicated relationship between Norman Maclean and his parents, and his prodigal yet distant and troubled brother Paul. In masterful and stirring prose, Maclean examines the strength of their bond, and yet how neither he nor his family could keep Paul from self-destruction. Maclean also mulls over his and his family’s ideas about grace and man’s relation to nature. Maclean’s enthralling vision is delivered through the artistry of his writing, earning the book its deserved position as a classic of American literature. In 1992, a film adaptation of the novel was released,

Religion and tradition are two ways that families come together. However in Norman Maclean’s novella, A River Runs Through It, the Maclean family’s devotion to their Presbyterian religion and their tradition of fly-fishing is what undeniably brought the family together. Under the father’s strict Presbyterian values, his sons, Norman and Paul used fly-fishing as the link that brought them closer together and helped them bond with their father on a different level. The family’s hobby of fly-fishing was started just for fun. It was a sport that was taken up every Sunday after church to take their minds off of the worries in life. After a while, going fly-fishing every Sunday turned into a tradition and soon a

glimpses of Paul trying to reach out and re-embrace his old thoughts and emotions and

Paul has an obsession with the arts, which serve as either an outlet or cause for his individuality, while at the same time bringing a certain understanding about Paul's unique persona to the reader. Cather illustrates this obsession frequently; for example she writes: "It was not that symphonies, as such, meant anything in particular to Paul, but the first sigh of the instruments seemed to free some hilarious and potent spirit within him; something that struggled there like the Genius in the bottle found by the Arab fisherman"(Pg. 3). However Paul's obsession with the arts is not necessarily healthy either, and serves almost as an addiction, as he has no desire to pursue a career in the arts. Although Paul seems to escape his daily struggle with conformity, and become lost in the dream world that these medias create for him, his desire to remain in a world of fantasy motivates him to lie and steal. This addiction is the reason Paul makes up stories in school about fantastic voyages he never takes, lying to his teachers, stealing money from "Denny & Carson's" (possibly a law firm?), and using the stolen money to pursue his fantasy: "what he wanted was to see, to be in the atmosphere [around the music and arts], float on the wave of it, to be carried out, blue league after blue league, away from everything."(Pg. 8) Even though Cather in some way justifies Paul's pursuit of his dreams through this addiction to the arts,

It was at the theatre and at Carnegie Hall that Paul really lived; the rest was but a sleep and forgetting. The moment he inhaled the gassy, painty, dusty odour behind the scenes, he breathed like a prisoner set free, and felt within him the possibility of doing or saying splendid, brilliant, poetic things. The moment the

All lives revolve around decisions and instances from ones past. In A River Runs Through It (1992), director Robert Redford uses this idea and applies it to a true story of two brothers from Montana, Norman and Paul Maclean (Craig Sheffer and Brad Pitt, respectively). Based on the autobiographical novel by Norman Maclean himself, River uses Maclean’s metaphysical beliefs about life and nature to present its many themes. Using a longing score, various film devices, and a story line involving themes of youth, loss, and the pitfalls of pride, Robert Redford crafts a film about the beauty of the past.