In this passage, Knowles uses weather and location to describe the mood and to foreshadow Gene’s future. The chapter begins with Gene explaining his future and how he ends up going to war. He explains how his journey to Leper’s house marked the beginning of many trips like this. He explains, “That night I made for the first time the kind of journey which later became the most monotonous routine of my life: traveling through an unknown settlement to another” (Knowles 138). This quotation shows how Vermont and its scenery reminds older Gene of the war and it explains how this trip was the beginning of many of Gene’s travels for the war. Knowles uses weather and conditions at the end of the chapter as well to foreshadow Gene’s future. When Gene and Leper are in the field, Gene describes the noises of the ice and snow. He narrates, “The crust beneath us continued to crack and as we reached the border of the field the frigid trees were also cracking with the cold. The two sharp groups of noises sounded to my ears like rifles being fired in the distance” (Knowles 151). In this passage, Knowles uses the “rifles in the distance” to connect back to the war and to foreshadow Gene’s future in it. He also uses words like “frigid” to give a negative connotation to this reading. In this chapter, Knowles uses the weather and its connotations to show Genes future in the war and how his trip to see Leper connects to this.
Tuesday, May 8, 2018
Assignment #9: Gene spends the first part of the chapter traveling to Leper’s house. Choose two or three phrases of description about the landscape (location, weather, temperature) and explore how Knowles is using them. Why does he include these details here and why at this time? What does it reveal about Gene at this time? (Gillian)
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As Gene goes to Finny's house he thinks back about the "night [...he] made for the first time the kind of journey which later became the most monotonous routine of my life” (Knowles 138). As Gillian said, it tells the reader that Gene will be in the war, but I also believe that it helps foreshadow how Leper will feel. Similar to how Gene is retelling the events here, Leper is going to be shown later as a charecter stuck in the past. At Lepers house, he constantly talks about the war and cannot forget it. As present-day Gene shows, it is difficult to forget tramatic experiences like the war, and his confession of his intractable pain leads well to when John Knowles introduces post-war Leper.
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