Montana 1948 Oral Choices

The novel Montana 1948 is a series of tragic events that have a major impact on the narrator, David Hyden and his family. David’s shocking revelations lead to his painful gaining of wisdom. When David’s story begins, his life is a stable and happy one, and his family are close and loving. It is this stability and respect though, in which the much loved and admired Frank is held by both the townspeople and David, that make the events which occur so shocking, particularly for David. He must pretend, not just for the remainder of the novel, but for the rest of his life, to be ignorant of Frank’s crimes, and much of what is happening because his parents do not realise that he has overheard their discussions.
A loss of David’s innocence appears during his killing of a magpie. “It can be done in a flick of the finger”. The particular significance about this plays an important part in his as he considers that he also is capable of committing such unfortunate yet immoral things. “Looking in the dead bird’s eye, I realised that these strange, unthought-of of connections - sex and death, lust and violence, desire and degradation - are there, there, deep in even a good heart’s chambers”.
Maturity may come at any age, but it is an experience that is remembered their whole lives. As the story continues, David matures and grows in order to deal with the situation. Larry Watson suggests that traumatic experiences transform children into adults. Therefore, disturbing experiences lead to changes of mind, growth in morals, and an emerging sense of adulthood. David is close to being an adult because he realizes how he must act and the dangers of the situation in which he and his family are involved. By now, David has issued forth a sense of development and maturity. He is far from the child who once looked forward to visits from his uncle and visits to his grandfather's ranch.
As an adult, he is concerned with the welfare of his family and his parents' well being, emotionally.