The Hollar Analysis

The gunshot echoes off the hills like a ghost dancing in the night. The fire blazes outside with strong fervor, and a certain nostalgia is here, in the darkness that likens them back to a time long ago. The land once belonged to a man that the grandfather, then a young man, helped out in his spare time. When the man passed away, he willed it to the young man, now grandfather, named Gene Greer. After the grandfather’s death, the land split between his four warring children.
The land, affectionately referred to as the Hollar, sits in a natural bowl that seems to hold in the beauty of nature. There is a rumor that five mountain springs exist on the property, but the maintenance is too bad for the family to venture into the woods and find them …show more content…
At dusk, a young man enters a bank, near its closing time and he pulls out his gun as he makes his way to the front counter. The young man that works there takes money out of the bank at gunpoint, and puts it into the robber’s bag that he brought with him. After receiving the money, the thief runs outside, hops on his horse, and rides off. Police chase him into the nearby mountains, into the land now known as the Hollar. The man buries the money near his camp where he plans to stay for the night. A gunshot rings through the night, sound bouncing off the hills, ricocheting through the trees and the man drops dead. His horse and belongings are taken back into town by the police. Search parties would dig up the land in search of the stolen money, but it, to this day, has not been …show more content…
Under rocks, beside springs, and alongside trails, areas thoroughly searched even long after his death. They clung to the idea that it could be true, despite the grandfather’s habit of telling stories that are not necessarily true. If nothing else it brought them together. His family draws creativity and serenity from a land they own, so shrouded in mystery. The land has now been divided. Families cannot go up there any longer because of disputes and intimidation tactics employed by someone who wants to own the whole property alone. Who takes away someone else’s childhood like that? The land is all that many have left of him. He never really knew his grandchildren. He died before some of them were even two years old. It is almost as though he still exists there for them, rooted in that land as deeply as some of the trees that have grown there for years.
The Hollar means something to a many people. For some it is too hard to even think about because the presence of the dead, beloved father was too much for them, for others it is all they have left of a childhood. The land is a place of fortitude and love founded in family. The tiny cabin in the middle of the woods was built by many hands with a common aim: to bring the family together. The land is the glue that binds the family together, just as the man Gene Greer did before he died so many years