Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It Essay

This is Water, was a commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace at Kenyon College in 2005. Ever since this speech has been given it has become well known. Because of the length, it can be hard to read through the speech while trying to understand the whole idea of it. Wallace fills the speech with stories, examples, and vivid ideas while trying to convince these college graduates how to view life in a positive perspective. While this speech is packed full of ideas he manages to give it in a way outside of the norm for commencement speeches. Yet still gets all the information to the graduates and anyone else who listens to it.

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

From the beginning of the novel there has always been an odd vibe coming from Paul Fisher's brother, Erik Fisher. In many eyes Paul is caring, open-minded, and respectful, but Erik is the exact opposite, being more self-centered, sneaky, and egotistical. Eriks actions of being sneaking can be constant, but more seen when Paul wakes up in the middle of the night.

Released in 1971 and produced by Reprise records, river is an intensely emotional contemporary folk song about heartbreak. Written solely by Joni Mitchell for her album ‘Blue’ the song is reminiscent of Christmas time although lyrically it has little relationship to Christmas. (Hopper, 2012)

“The Bass, the River, and Sheila Mant,” by W. D. Wetherell, is an initiation story in which the symbols of fishing and Sheila Mant illustrate how the character of the narrator transforms from youth and innocence to sophistication and maturity. At age fourteen, it is typical for a boy such as the narrator to be beginning this transformation. Being innocent and naïve in a sense, the fourteen year old narrator gets an enormous crush on a seventeen year old girl named Sheila Mant and comes to believe she is what he loves most in life. For him, Sheila is a symbol of the maturity and sophistication he will eventually become a

"The Boat" by Alistair MacLeod is the story told from the perspective of university teacher looking back on his life. The narrator relates the first memories of his life until his father's death. The story focuses on the conflicting relation between the mother and the father, and their different perspectives on how their children should lead their lives. MacLeod uses features of setting to present the tension between tradition and freedom.

The film is about a family living near the Blackfoot River in Missoula, Montana, in the early 1920’s. The father is a passionate fisherman and Presbyterian minister who emphasizes in his sermons that the disciples were fishermen. The film also revolves around the ministers two sons and their love for fly-fishing. They were taught the skill well by their father. Their father ties the love of God into the ability of His people to use rudimentary tools to engage in the beautiful act of fly-fishing to provide food. One of the things that the father tells his sons right away in the movie was, “All good things come by grace, grace comes by art, art doesn’t come easy” (Redford, 1992). Later in the movie after Norman had returned from college, he commented on how his brother had become an artist in his

Steven Herrick’s work of “By the river” displays a bildungsroman novel in which harry goes on a journey through life, facing love and loss.

journalist. These two very different brothers are brought together through the years by a mutual love of fly fishing instilled in them by their unyielding father. As Norman watches his brother's seemingly charmed life dissolve under the influences of gambling and alcohol, the art of fly fishing becomes a touching metaphor for the love their father was unable to express in any other way.

The short story “The Boat” by Alistair MacLeod is narrated by a man who comes from a fishing family. His mother’s side of the family has forever lived and worked by the sea and continues this tradition. The narrator’s father always wanted to be an academic, but worked on the boat to support his family. Through this passage it is evident that the parents’ characters clash in many aspects of their lives and are in constant conflict. MacLeod demonstrates this through the use of repetition, the contrast in other unrelated ideas, and through information that is withheld.

Paul and Norman grew up in the same household, with the same values, but from their fishing styles, to their jobs and educations, to their social lives, their differences amount to those of night and day. While boys, young in age and mindsets, Paul and Norman learned to fish from Mr. Maclean. This factor had vast significance because, in this preacher's family, a clear line between fishing and religion had no presence. Mr. Maclean taught his sons the conventional four-count.

Throughout A River Runs Through It, Norman Maclean emphasizes the relationship between nature, art, and faith. The concise, simple sentence with which he chooses to open his story captures the essence of all one hundred pages: in his family, 'there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing' (1). Reverend Maclean believes that both fly fishing and spiritual belief are 'exact arts,' if such a term can exist without paradox. The Reverend holds the firm conviction that 'all good things ' trout as well as eternal salvation ' come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy' (4). This belief system obviously espouses a view of the world as meticulous and well-ordered:

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.

One cannot truly change the world around without first mastering the art of looking beyond oneself and into the outside world. This idea of looking beyond oneself has been the focus of ancient and modern philosophers throughout the world. In “The Is Water”(2005), a commencement address, David Foster Wallace, a modern day philosopher, implies that people generally view the world from a selfish perspective and elaborates on how the world should work to reverse its self-centered ways. Wallace reveals his topic through a series of anecdotes, each highlighting a different way we are focused on ourselves and then providing a way to view each situation from a different perspective. Wallace’s purpose is to point out the faults in thinking only for

1. “The Anacostia River is a metaphor for the way poor people and minorities are treated” (Hoover). In 1994, the Anacostia River was fourth on the list of American Rivers' “Most Endangered Rivers” (Rynor). Since the late 19 th century the water quality in this river has slowly declined with the onset of urbanization and industrialization and the pollution that accompanies this growth. The Anacostia is severely polluted with “sediment, nutrients, pathogens, toxins, and trash” (“Cleaning”). And it is no coincidence that the river runs through some of Washington D.C.'s poorest communities in the south-eastern sections of the city.