Monday, March 7, 2011
Avery and Dane: Going Down In the Flood
What does it mean to be an outsider? For Dane, life seems hard to navigate because he is different. Is this sibling rivalry or just sibling contempt? Do Corey and Dane share any traits? When we first meet Avery, he seems to be the worrywart son, who just wants to not have to spend so much time thinking about his declining mother. He seems to lack sympathy for his mother's plight and her desire to live the rest of her years back home where she was born. Yet, Avery's chapter really blows us out of our complacency and makes us realize that sometimes we judge others on too little information. What else does the author advance here by having Avery tell us his story of Buffalo Creek so personally and vividly?
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By telling the story through Avery's perspecitve, it shows how willing the mind is to forget any horrors that a person has endured. In the beginning Avery claims that he does not remember anything before waking up on the bank. He is young and confused and has just survived a horrible ordeal. It is not surprising that his mind has supressed his memories. When it is revealed that he actually does remember, the reader really understands why he refuses to acknowledge it. Having survived struggling through contaminated sludge and torrential flood waters and watching as his friend dies before his eyes is traumatizing. It also puts into perspective how Avery feels about his mother living under another mountain top mining site. He doesn't want his mother to have to go through that same terror again because even after all this time, even now that Avery is an adult, he cannot forget and everyone who suffered during the ordeal never will.
ReplyDeleteHaving the experience of Buffalo Creek told from a separate perspective (Avery's) shows a different and more cautious point of view and makes the reader realize his persistence at his mother leaving the mountain side. Having this vivid story of the events of Buffalo Creek makes the events more realistic and dangerous and show the intense possibilty of danger that many residents face, including Avery's mother.
ReplyDeleteAs for the relationship and compatability between Dane and Corey, it is very different. Corey is more of a model of his father, with the rough attitude and the disregard for nature and more regard for material things such as cars, machines, four wheelers, and the like. He resembles Jimmy Make in the way that he longs for a house like Seth's just as Jimmy Make longs for a better life in North Caroline, with a new job and better things. Dane resembles the gentleness of Mogey, a big contrast to Jimmy Make. He even has a special place in the woods where he feels the presence and heat of God because he understands the presence of God, like Mogey. Because Dane and Corey are so different, they don't talk to each other much and have barely any relation. Their maturity levels are even stated through Jimmy Make when he sends Dane to be bed with Tommy because he is 'younger inside' although physically and literally older in person.
*****AGAIN THIS IS ARABELLA****
ReplyDeleteBecause Pancake writes a chapter from Avery's persective, it adds another real-life and gut-wrenching experience of someone who has lived through a flood (Buffalo Creek), and seen those he loves not survive. Avery's chapter shows that he is genuine in his desire to have his mother get out of that area, not to make his life easier, but to save her. He has already experience losing someone to the dangerous flood waters, and he is merely trying to protect his mother.
Dane and Corey are very different- Corey is fiery and impulsive, while Dane cannot make decisions or act when he needs to. Dane is less masculine than Corey although Corey is younger. This is very hard for Dane to deal with, and thus adds to the hard feelings between him and his brother Corey.
Avery's chapter and his harrowing experience of surviving Buffalo Creek depicts the absolute terror of the experience of simply being washed away instantaneously in the middle of the night. Pancake's uses imagery to delineate Avery's experience and encounters on his journey home. It gives an eerie post apocalyptic feeling and illustrates the devastation of the emotional and physical state of the individuals affected by Buffalo Creek. This chapter in particular gives great reason as to why Dane is obsessed with his world ending with the event of a flood. It is because of this concern Dane is ostracized by his family and even emasculated by his brothers and father.
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