We have finally
reached the end of the book. Though the ending wasn’t necessarily up to par
with the rest of the book, I would say it was still a very good book. Just as I
had hoped, the author delivered several more thought-provoking statements that I
really caught hold of. One was when Mattie was talking about one of her calves.
Daisy, one of their best cows, had died recently and one of her babies was
struggling with the loss. Mattie says, “…he wanted Daisy. But he couldn’t have
Daisy, so he finally took what was offered. Like we all do” (299). By talking
about this scenario even with a cow, Mattie has hit upon one of the sad truths
of life. Humans are settlers. Not settlers like they settle land, but settlers
in the way of giving up because something “isn’t worth the effort.” Now in the
cow’s case, obviously fighting harder isn’t going to bring its mother back.
However, most often when people settle for less they are doing so because they
don’t feel like fighting for it. Mattie’s tone when she thinks about this
points to the idea that she is saddened by this fact. She knows that certain
things just aren’t worth arguing, like the loss of a loved one but something
like our soccer team playing in the play-offs is definitely worth fighting for.
Say we settled for winning one play-off game and decided we weren’t going to
try too hard tonight. We would have driven an hour and a half and played
half-heartedly and most likely lost. Instead, we weren’t satisfied and we
played our hardest and won. We are in the quarterfinals for it. Some things are
just worth fighting for.
The next topic I
picked up on was a sad but subtle one. When Mattie’s friend Weaver is thinking
about not going to college Mattie says “‘Just go! Before you’re stuck here
forever. Like an ant in pitch.’ Like me” (358). I say this is sad because it
seems like Mattie has given up hope. I’ve talked a lot about the potency of
hope, both good and bad, in my previous posts. It’s upsetting to me that after
everything she’s gone through she has nearly accepted the fact that she isn’t
going to escape her farm life. The author does a fantastic job of making the
reader feel sympathetic to Mattie and her current situation.
And lastly, there
was one more of those thought provoking quotes that I thought I should discuss.
Even after Mattie reads all the letters from Grace Brown, She still doesn’t
want to burn them. She is worried that Grace’s voice will never be heard again.
She goes on to elaborate about what she has come to understand about the concept
of voice: “Voice, according to Miss Wilcox, is not just the sound that comes
from your throat but the feeling that comes from your words” (361). Though this
quote comes relatively late in the text, is emphasizes a theme that has been
obvious throughout the entire text. This is that words are powerful tools that
can do good or harm, so they must be chosen with the utmost of care. Mattie’s
obsession with words has taught her this but I believe a lot of time this
lesson can be forgotten. In the end this book contains a lot of valuable
lessons like this one and I think it is certainly worth your time.
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