Love by Jesse Stuart.

Jesse Stuart was born in 1907 and once he managed to get the opportunity to attend high school and then college, he realized that he has a talent as a writer. He is the author of numerous short stories and some novels, including biography of his father, who was the person that fostered his love for nature and appreciation of individuality.
Due to my age I tend to think about love a lot. Though my musings are not concentrated on the sweet side of this beautiful feeling. I see love as suffering in the first place. But good kind of suffering. I believe that love can ennoble such undesirable qualities as weakness and dependence. When you love somebody or something it makes you weak and vulnerable. You tend to forgive a lot and be helpless in front of the object of your passion, whether it is a person, job you are doing or just a pair of designer shoes. But at the same time, somehow it makes you ever so strong that you can confront the whole world as long as you are thinking about someone you love. It is a trade in some way. You suffer and give all your heart out for somebody or something you love and instead you get a supernatural power to fight against any kind of evil existing.
They say that if a person has nothing to lose it makes him invincible. And I believe that if you lost the ability to love you are already dead. Going through the loss of the loved ones or loved things makes you stronger, but only if you still keep that ability to feel anyway.
It will sound corny but the title of the story evokes Emotions. And this is the message of the story. Emotions on love, life, death and how one should cope with them or should he try to cope in the first place. The themes of the story are life and death and what is love if not that?
The story is told in the first person and in my opinion it is not coincidence. When you read those snippets when the main character thinks about the killed snake and implies it on the nature of human and life on the whole, you can get a feeling as if it is you who muse about all these things. And there is hardly any person who never thought about life and death, it is a never-ending topic of human being, the topic where everyone can get all the answers and still know nothing. But it doesn’t mean that one shouldn’t think about it. Every time you sink into deep philosophical and polemical thoughts it gives you something. Of course, if you are smart enough to analyze and understand and get something new out of the old things guided only by newly acquired experience.
When I was reading this story I felt the atmosphere of restlessness. It is starting with the description of the corn field which has a lot of references to the life and death from the very beginning. We can observe that via words like “dried roots”, “wilted corn”, ”dead treetops”, “dry spring”, “young corn stalks are killed” and as an integral part then comes the life : “new ground”, “young corn”, “young stalk of corn”, “tender roots”, “the grain has sprouted”, “we have to replant the corn”, etc. It clearly demonstrates that these two terms, “life” and “death” are everywhere. Everything begins and ends. And there is nothing you can do about it. And speaking about things considered eternal,” if nothing lasts forever then what makes love the exception?”.
In the English language the pronoun “it” refers to the animals as well. And this is the thing I could never get. And it even makes me think of English native-speakers as a heartless people in some way. I know it sounds exaggerated but my point is that only when the boy saw how easily the things significant to the human being (loving, giving birth, dying, grieving) can be transferred to an animal, he managed to refer to the snake as to “she”. Only then he started to personify “it” with something alive, capable of the things that are not alien to the boy himself. And only then he could understand the unity of all the things created by nature.
Probably this is the reason why all the characters if putting it bluntly are presented statically. On one hand we can see the development – the she-snake dies, the he-snake grieves, the boy starts to think about eternal questions and the father gains the respect for nature. But initially we see the characters in their natural state. It is just a snake laying eggs, it is just a dog sickened after the victim, it is just the owner of the dog doing his thing.
I’m not sure if it is even possible, but for me this story has two kinds of climax. The first one is when the boy discovers the eggs and it strikes him with realization what they’ve done and leaves him with the simple conclusion “it’s life”.
The second one can be referred to the sub-plot of this story – to the theme of love. When the boy and the father come back to the field next morning to find the he-snake lying beside his dead beloved. And this makes you think..human is considered to differ from the animal for his ability to think and experience emotions. But in the end it is the snake that shows more love than the human-father.
What concerns stylistic devices, in this story the repetition plays a significant role. Personally I adore this simple stylistic device and love to use it while writing. It is unpretentious and powerful at the same time. And it is , in fact, the easiest way to deliver your idea to the interlocutor. You can even find it in the books on empathic listening, and specially those books which are oriented on effective communication with children. Probably because the child’s mind is so brisk that it is hard to explain what you really feel or mean. And then unhurried repetition comes in handy. I guess this is a brilliant way to present this story. Just think what would happen to the whole message if the story was told in vivid and speedy way. That’s why I believe that simple sentences, slow narration, repetition, unpretentious words and short phrases are important when you want to pass on something important.
Maybe, the powerful content doesn’t need to be wrapped in a shiny paper after all.