Preview

‘Montana 1948’ Is About the Choices People Make.’ Discuss.

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1102 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
‘Montana 1948’ Is About the Choices People Make.’ Discuss.
Montana 1948 Text response essay
Essay Question: ‘Montana 1948’ is about the choices people make.’ Discuss.

Larry Watson’s novel ‘Montana 1948’ is told from the perspective of narrator David Hayden, recalling the experiences of his 12 year old self. The observations he witnesses and describes reflects the choices that are made by the adult characters of the novel. Not only changing himself but also changing the situations and environment around the small town of Bentrock. David’s uncle Frank played a major role in this novel displaying his selfish and egotistical choices. Along with these self-centered decisions, Wesley, was torn between protecting his family and obeying the law. These choices heavily influenced David’s own decisions therefore using his knowledge respectively. However, not everyone’s decisions and choices were used. Gail the main woman figure in the novel had her choices declined and disregarded due to the fact that she is a woman. These decisions and choices that were made by frank greatly influenced on the whole of the family.
David’s uncle, Frank Hayden is a highly confident, ignorant and narcissistic doctor who is clearly only interested in his own priorities, status and position in the community. His choices that are presented throughout the novel do heavily influence the entire family’s decisions. Which do shape the future events for the family. Frank has had a long line of being the favourite sibling between the two brothers (Wesley and Frank) due to this his father, Julian is fully aware of the fact that Frank is engaging in adult behaviours with Indian women, this had started in his early teens. Such things as these are explained when Marie stated that “When he examines an Indian he…he does things he shouldn’t. He takes liberties. Indecent Liberties.” This statement explains how the American Indians in particular, Marie feels about frank and his methods while examining Indian women. The choices that frank made were extremely

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Much of Larry Murtry’s work is an ongoing examination of the current Texas, both urban and rural .Much of the remaining works, such Lonesome Dove, is an attempt to understand the frontier past. Lonesome Dove is an epic story about a journey of two former Texas rangers who decided to move their cattle from Texas to Montana. Along their way, they encounter many problems and the jou4rney ends with numerous injuries. Therefore this paper aims to examine the story in the novel from the beginning of the journey up to the end.…

    • 252 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In “The Red Convertible”, written by Louise Erdrich, Henry Lamartine makes three unforgettable trips off the Chippewa reservation. The first journey, taken with his brother, Lyman, becomes a pleasurable summer trip across the country. The next time Henry leaves is when he is drafted by the military to fight in the Vietnam War. The third and final time he ventures off the reservation is when he takes a drive to the river to commit suicide. Although each of these journeys are different, the red convertible that the brothers share, ties the endeavors together.…

    • 467 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Within four days, five summer rainstorms had hit the eastern shores of Virginia, and transformed the regional roadways, into a never-ending slip and slide. In the rural town of Wrongberight, Clemmy Sue Jarvis, a petite, vivacious woman of sixty-three, loathes driving on rain soaked roads. However, she is on a mission, late Saturday afternoon and has no choice, but to cautiously, ease out of her driveway, turn south onto Flat Bottom Road and follow it for seventeen miles, into the boonies, to the isolated home of her dearest friend Estelle Louise.…

    • 1455 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Imagine to live in Montana - quiet, beautiful place, to spend your childhood playing outdoors, going fishing and just enjoying the wildness of Montana. The book Montana 1948 by Larry Watson and the film A River Runs Through It by Robert Redford have many similarities. Settings, characters and problems they have are only few of the many common things the book and the film share. The most general similarity is the setting where the both works take place in, and the time when it is happening. Also the main characters from both works have a lot in common. And the racism, it was showed in both works, the prejudices towards American Indians.…

    • 425 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the memoir, The Horizontal World written by Debra Marquart, she describes growing up in the Midwest region. By using literary devices, she tells the readers about her profound love for the area, even though it may seem to the blind eye as a boring and lonely place to visit. Literary devices such as allusions and charged diction suggest that the Midwest has a unique beauty that not everyone notices, or bothers to notice. By using these literary devices, Marquart is able to convince her readers of the beauty of the Midwest.…

    • 264 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Montana 1948 Oral Choices

    • 626 Words
    • 3 Pages

    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.…

    • 626 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “From the summer of my twelfth year I carry a series of images move vivid and lasting than any others of my boyhood and indelible beyond all my attempts the years make to erase or fade them…”(p. 11). These are the very first lines of Larry Watson’s Montana 1948. This first thought immediately gives off the ambiance that there are major conflicts to occur. Of course every novel needs a conflict to move the plot along, but what makes Montana 1948 special is all of the conflicts involve family members. This makes resolution more difficult because of a natural desire to want the best for the person while also wanting them to face their consequences. This causes a person to choose between doing their job as a family member and a member of the surrounding society,which increases intensity and makes the issue very personal.…

    • 893 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Montana 1948(Monologue)

    • 712 Words
    • 3 Pages

    I know I shouldn’t be feeling this. Would it be a sin to do so?…

    • 712 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Montana 1948 shows Indian people, and characters struggling to make their own choices, leads to…

    • 512 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Character in Montana 1948

    • 614 Words
    • 3 Pages

    An important character in Montana 1948 is Wesley Hayden. He is introduced as a weak and oblivious character, who lives under the shadow of his brother Frank. Throughout the story, it is shown that Wesley is a lawyer who was coerced into being a sheriff due to the pressure put on him by his overpowering father. In this essay I will explore why Wesley Hayden is an important character in the novel Montana 1948 by Larry Watson. He is used to illustrate the theme of loyalty vs. justice, he grows the most as a person in the novel and he has to cope with making difficult decisions so the reader will empathise with him.…

    • 614 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Racism In Montana 1948

    • 586 Words
    • 3 Pages

    It is evident throughout the story, that the Native Americans in the Montana community are not treated fairly because of prejudice and white supremacy. Julian, Frank and Wes, the three Haydens, had highlighted the extreme racism in the small community. Marie Little Soldier, a young Hunkpapa Sioux Native, is a housekeeper and a baby sitter of David. She is recognised as a servant and lives in a small room next to the kitchen despite having a free, normal room in the house. Wes ridicules her culture when she becomes very ill due to a cold, and didn’t want Frank Hayden, a doctor to come in and check on her. Wes tells his family: “Frank said maybe he'd do a little dance around the bed. And if that doesn't work he'll try beating some drums (pg.35) and …as flat-footed and lazy as an Indian (pg.34).” Wes showed that he was quite prejudice towards Native Americans, their customs and beliefs to the extent he sounded…

    • 586 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    “Can You Tell the Truth in a Small Town?” by Kathleen Norris describes the lack of acceptance of the truth in her small town. The African - Americans in Maya Angelou’s “Reclaiming Our Home Place” deal with similar pain felt from the persecution they receive from white citizens who fantasize about the good old “Gone With the Wind” days (Angelou 135). They do not want to face the truth they need to stand up and fight for their civil liberties instead they go north to escape. Written history becomes eradicated through novelized accounts of life in small towns that do not depict what it is like to live there. These novels are dangerous because they do nota portray the history, allowing residents to be in denial of their current situation. Norris…

    • 1397 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Compromise of 1850

    • 490 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Compromise of 1850 was effective for the southern states even though California was a slave free state in 1849 when California joined the union. (1) Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois managed to push this agreement for California to enter the Union as a free state but there were concessions made to slave owners about other acquisitions. (1)With this result the people in the southern states felt a relief of tension and a cause for celebration. This gave the southerners the right to retain slaves in those territories. (1) Congress cried “The Union is Saved!” (2) The Compromise had five bills which was intended to stave off sectional strife. The goal was on to deal with the spread of slavery to territories which in turn to keep northern and southern interests in balance. (2) One of these new bills was the Fugitive Slave Act which enlisted federal magistrates in the task of returning the runaway slaves back to their owners. (2) Another bill was New Mexico and Utah were allowed to use popular sovereignty to decide on the issues of slavery. This meant that the people would pick whether the states would be a free or slave state. (2) Also, one of the other bills was that the slave trade be abolished in the District of Columbia. The ineffectiveness of the Compromise of 1850 was ultimately it led to a Republican victory in 1860 and to the Southern secession. Also, it led so much more animosity between the North and South.…

    • 490 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the town of Jackson is split into two separate societies, the coloured and the white. Throughout the book, Stockett assesses the contrasting mind-sets within each of these societies. Within the coloured society, the kindness and willingness to give is very evident: ‘If you can love your enemy, you already have victory.’ While the system of the white society is very evident through Aibileens comments: “They go doing things behind one another’s backs. And why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. And sometimes lines are made to be crossed.” This contrast in the depiction of the two realms of society help the reader understand the idea of self-fulfilment and happiness, as it shows the differing extremes of human nature. On one hand, we propel ourselves to the top at the expense of others and often in the end your own happiness, and on the other we achieve as one and everyone is content with their role in society. From this idea and the contrasting approaches to society as a whole, I have learned that the first step to being contented with your life is to be glad about the people who surround you. If you do not appreciate these people, and you take them for granted, then not only will you put your friendships in jeopardy, but you are unlikely to be truly happy with where you are in life and where you want to…

    • 1060 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Silvey’s novel Jasper Jones explores the theme of social hypocrisy and honesty. A villain traditionally is dishonest and wishes to hide his dishonesty and crimes behind an appealing mask. A hero wishes to expose and challenge the hypocrisy around him/her acting with honesty and integrity. In the novel, the setting of Corrigan, as well as the characters of Shire President and Sergeant, are powerful symbols of the hypocrisy in society. Charlie Butkin- a youthful hero who is seeking moral answers- discovers the true nature of his town’s hypocrisy when Jasper Jones, the town scapegoat, comes to him seeking help after he finds the body of Laura Wishart ( the shire president’s daughter) hanging from a tree. Jasper knows the true nature of the town prejudice and lifts the curtain for Charlie to see how many evil secrets are hidden behind the veneer of Coorigan’s well-groomed suburban streets. Our hero, Charlie begins to seek the truth and ultimately acts with honesty, rejecting the hypocritical tendencies of all around him. That Charlie is honest and true and maintains these standards when even his mother is complicit in keeping secrets is a testament to his struggle to expose evil and strive for goodness. Conversely the Shire President’s hidden crime highlights not only his hypocrisy but also his villainy.…

    • 1744 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays