Child Of The Far Frontier By Wallace Stegner Analysis

In “Child of the Far Frontier,” Wallace Stegner writes in the first person about his childhood and his upbringing, with details that reveal how one’s past experiences—especially during their childhood—profoundly impact their overall identity in ways that cannot always be reversed; this is verifiably true both in Stegner’s case and those of others, nearly an axiom of the human condition. One example is how people sometimes follow in the footsteps of their parents and other family members in terms of career choices, whether for social and economic reasons, due to genetic tendencies, or simply because of the psychological impressionability of young minds. First, there might be purely superficial, social, or economic incentives for repeating careers …show more content…
In “The Little Store,” Eudora Welty walks down memory lane almost literally and describes many of the moments she remembers and why. Perhaps the most important claim that she makes is that “[s]etting out in this world, a child feels so indelible. He only comes to find out later that it’s all the others along his way who are making themselves indelible to him.” Indelible meaning permanently implanted, one realizes that the people and places Welty describes—her principal, the popular girls, Lindsey—meant less to her then than they do now. This is true, for time gives perspective and makes moments and experiences more meaningful. A great example of this is James McBride’s family story, which he writes about in The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother; in the book, McBride writes about his coming-of-age in New York, where he was raised by a white Jewish woman. First of all, and this is a bit of an unfortunate case, bad moments and bad experiences come to the forefront. Even though Welty probably found much success as a child—she volunteers to help her mother and earns high scores on examinations at school, for example—she remembers, and recounts in “The Little Store,” those things that haunt her, including her mean verse about Lindsey and the one word she was unable to spell. In The Color of Water, McBride writes a lot about the bad things that occurred during his childhood and upbringing, too, including instances of racial discrimination and crimes he once perpetrated, like theft. Even though there are lots of successes to remember, the human mind remembers failures. This can be in service to a wide spectrum of emotions, from vindication once such a failure has been overcome to depression over missed opportunities. In any case, these emotions become more powerful when one looks