34 Seasons Response

Andrea Allen
Intro to Literature
Mrs. Linda Bingham
November 10, 2014
Response #5 Ben and Art were step brothers who, in their life, had many different forms of love. Art was the brother who had lost the love of his mother to alcohol; then later throughout his life he had been married once and engaged again, along with the many mistresses he had. Ben, lost the love of his father, it seems, when he married Art’s mother. Later on in Ben’s life it was confirmed when his father left and never returned or sent word. Ben and Art seem very much different when it comes to love and their experiences. Art was the brother who slept with multiple different women and would never fully allow his self to fall in love with someone. Art was actually associated with a woman who would later become Ben’s wife. Another love that is portrayed within the story, of Thirty-Four Seasons of Winter, is the love of nature. The two step brother’s spend most of their time working out in the field doing manual labor and feeding the animals out on the farm. When the men are outdoors they seem much calmer and more at ease. It seems that although it gets quite hot during the summer and cold in the winter, they still enjoy the outdoors. Compared with the scenes indoors, there is no conflict, whatsoever, outdoors. The indoor scenes of the story seem to be filled with more conflict and more drama. Two very distinct women that are portrayed throughout the story are Clara-Art’s first wife-and Marie-Ben’s wife. Clara is the more prominent of the two women in the story. Once Clara was introduced as Art’s girlfriend at the beginning, showed as his wife later, and then his ex at the middle to end, she proceeded to still have love for him; even after he slept with other women. Clara’s love for Art was quite different of the love that he received from all the other women, including Marie. After Art died, Clara still proclaimed her love for him by saying, “I would have took anything off him. Any damned thing. And that stupid bitch kills him. I would have given anything for his kid.” The down side to this is that Art would not accept or even allow Clara’s love into his life. He continued to push her away and sleep with other women. His treatment towards her and his death shows just how much love weighs on people and that no matter how hard you want or try, you cannot remove your love for someone. Marie, Ben’s wife, was also a former lover of Art. Art was the one who actually told Marie to be with Ben. That Ben would love her and treat her right. Marie, fearful of Art, did exactly what she was suggested and married Ben. Most likely, not realizing until his death, how much she still cared for Art. When Ben saw how Marie reacted to Art’s death, he put the knowledge of them meeting with the emotions of her cry and saw that Marie and Art were once together. Ben then became extremely upset and jealous resulting in him believing that Marie never loved him and that the child she was carrying was not his, but his step brother’s child. Within the last paragraph of the story, when Ben lay down in his bed, he had a recalled a memory of Art, “a warm, shirtsleeve day in February, working with Art”. This ending sentence shows of the brotherly love that the two men had for each other. Although, the story starts off as Ben being upset every time he thought of his brother, it ends in him being able to still love his brother, even in his sleep.