To Every Thing There Is A Season Analysis

The thick feeling of confusion stirred together with overwhelming anxiety and finally topped off with a sprinkle of fear all contribute to test whether one is able 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” during the Christmas of 1977. 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 thinking of self to thinking of others.
The narrator comes to see himself as a precious …show more content…
As the time of Christmas approaches, the narrator is “troubled [him]self about the nature of Santa Claus and [he tries] to hang on to him any way that [he] can…For without him, as without the man’s ship, it seems [their] fragile lives would be so much more desperate” (301). As the quote proves, MacLeod establishes the turmoil and conflict as the narrator is hesitant about whether he should perceive Santa Claus as his only hope. The narrator seems idealistic as he believes Santa is what makes Christmas time so magical. The eleven year old boy expresses his idealism as he grasps onto the Santa Claus myth for being uncertain of the opportunities yet to vision in future. Furthermore, the protagonist ponders about how his father “has ‘not been well’ for over two years and has difficulty breathing…[a]s [he] look[s] at him out of the corner of [his] eye, it does not seem that he has many of them left” (302). With the epiphany, the narrator discovers his life-changing revelation that leaves the greatest impact on his life when he becomes aware that this may be his father 's final Christmas with them. The protagonist then matures to accept there could be something even bigger and more severe than him being troubled about the nature of Santa Claus. On Christmas Eve, the older members of the family gather for gift wrapping, and the narrator “look[s] at [his] parents drawn together before the Christmas tree…[he] look[s] at [his] sisters, who have crossed this threshold ahead of [him]…[he] look[s] at [his] magic older brother who has come to [them] this Christmas from half a continent away, bringing everything has and is. All of them are captured in the tableau of their care” (305). The narrator recognizes with his family, each of them, gradually