Immersed in a Thousand Shades of Adolescence The thick feeling of confusion and overwhelming anxiety interspersed with fear all contribute to test one’s ability to withstand the spice of life strived in adolescence. To Every Thing There Is a Season by Alistair MacLeod is a coming of age story “seen through the eyes of an eleven-year-old boy, who as an adult remembers the way things were back home on the farm on the west coast of Cape Breton” (Penguin Random House). Along the lines of the story, the protagonist awakens to a bigger picture of life outside his own small world as he steps his way up from ignorance to knowledge, idealism to realism and selfishness to selflessness. The narrator comes to see himself as a precious part of the world,
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As Christmas approaches, he starts to ripen and recoil from selfishness to selflessness. As the family waits for their elder brother, the protagonist “wish[es] it to be cold, cold on the Great Lakes of Ontario, so that he may come home to [them] as soon as possible” (MacLeod 302). The narrator demonstrates an act of selfishness as he neglects the global consequences that could occur if the Great Lakes freeze. “The effect of the Great Lakes freezing is crucial because it impacts a range of societal benefits provided by the lakes, from hydropower generation to commercial shipping to the fishing industry” (Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory). Epiphany occurs when the narrator feels helpless because “[they] can do nothing...[h]is coming seems to depend on so many factors which are out there far beyond [them] and over which [they] lack control” (MacLeod 303). The protagonist begins to understand reality and the things far beyond his reach. The epiphany signifies his beginning of maturity as he works to be patient in such matters. At last, when his brother arrives, the narrator observes his brother’s friends “have come so far and tomorrow is Christmas Eve and stretches of mountains and water sill lie between them and those they love” (MacLeod 303). The protagonist shows concern towards someone who he does not know very well. Despite all his problems, whether it is losing his father, or his ambiguity of which values to embrace, he worries about his brother’s friends. Truly, a gleam of sympathy sparks inside the eleven-year-old narrator as he moves from selfishness to
As Christmas approaches, he starts to ripen and recoil from selfishness to selflessness. As the family waits for their elder brother, the protagonist “wish[es] it to be cold, cold on the Great Lakes of Ontario, so that he may come home to [them] as soon as possible” (MacLeod 302). The narrator demonstrates an act of selfishness as he neglects the global consequences that could occur if the Great Lakes freeze. “The effect of the Great Lakes freezing is crucial because it impacts a range of societal benefits provided by the lakes, from hydropower generation to commercial shipping to the fishing industry” (Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory). Epiphany occurs when the narrator feels helpless because “[they] can do nothing...[h]is coming seems to depend on so many factors which are out there far beyond [them] and over which [they] lack control” (MacLeod 303). The protagonist begins to understand reality and the things far beyond his reach. The epiphany signifies his beginning of maturity as he works to be patient in such matters. At last, when his brother arrives, the narrator observes his brother’s friends “have come so far and tomorrow is Christmas Eve and stretches of mountains and water sill lie between them and those they love” (MacLeod 303). The protagonist shows concern towards someone who he does not know very well. Despite all his problems, whether it is losing his father, or his ambiguity of which values to embrace, he worries about his brother’s friends. Truly, a gleam of sympathy sparks inside the eleven-year-old narrator as he moves from selfishness to