Analysis Essay-Shaylen

James Galvin weaves through the lives of several people in his book The Meadow making ea!h one !onne!ted to the simpli!ity and nature of this meadow they live in and around" #ay $orster is an important !hara!ter in the book be!ause though through most of his life he is not living in the meadow% he is a part of it and the lives of all of those who live there" #ay is a !omple& and troubled !hara!ter whose personality is altered by the pla!es he is raised in% the isolation he lives in% and later in his life the !limate% in parti!ular snow" 'e is a man with many !onfli!ting traits( some of those that are most prominent throughout the book are his sensitivity% re!klessness% and thoughtfulness" Through the duration of the book there are e&amples of #ay)s sensitivity in the way the people and on o!!asion animals around him are affe!ted" Early in #ay)s life a young boy and living with his brothers and father in their !laim sha!k App% #ay)s father says to him he was soft-hearted *+,-" At the time #ay is unsure if what his father says to him is good but it seems that he must de!ide it is be!ause he !ontinues to be so through the rest of his life" .ater when #ay is an older man% living near the meadow at the reservoir% he kills a beautiful and large beaver out of what seems like ne!essity% and is found by Galvin drunk and !rying in the ba!k of his tru!k" Although he is emotional over the beaver #ay does not show remorse over killing game animals% and does not feel strongly about !oyotes the way .yle does" After the death of their father in the August of /011% #ay% 2ete% and Ja!k worked for two days and two nights with tears streaming down their fa!es *//3- digging a grave for him" There are several other o!!asions in the book where #ay !ries for someone% but there is also a point in #ay)s story where he went to work */44- on a guy)s fa!e who was a bully% hitting him again and again" This shows a form of sensitivity% but more towards an a!t of in5usti!e that !auses him anger rather than pain or sorrow" All three of the boys are very mu!h like their father% espe!ially #ay sin!e he is the one we get to know% in the way that they have no embarrassment to show their sensitivity to those around them% and #ay like his father has empathy to the natural world around him" #ay)s re!kless behavior shifts and grows towards the end of his life% as he began to manifest a strange relationship with snow */64-% but as a younger man #ay is still daring" At a time when #ay and his two brothers still go to s!hool driving there they go twenty to thirty miles through the snowy prairie in reverse" 'owever it is in the final three years of his life that #ay begins to really risk his life% going out

into bli77ards drunk and lost" 8ut he does not only show fearlessness in the fa!e of a snow some nights% with light snow predi!ted and a few flakes in the air% 9)d see #ay streaking by Galvin e&plains how #ay leaves for town at the !han!e of snow" #ay)s e&peditions% fearless and drunk are not always solo he sometimes would go out with his daughter Ginny" :ne winter they pass by ;rank)s house at midnight they woke again to a drunk whoop of laughter */64- eventually #ay gets stu!k as he usually does and ;rank !omes to help dig him out" :n nights su!h as this #ay always has shovels% blankets% food% and e&tra gasoline% with the e&!eption of one bli77ard infused night" $ith 'oward% a man without volition to the point of dementia */01- #ay went on a final and fatal trip up the mountain" They start out at day% but are !aught in the night and when the tra!kster gets stu!k they have no way of retrieving it nor will 9 know why #ay% who kept blankets% food% and two five gallon !ans of e&tra gasoline in the Tra!kster for su!h an o!!asion% had apparently forgotten all these things so the two men wait till both free7e in a !old and drunken state" #ay)s re!kless behavior probably stems from his pre!arious and impoverished !hildhood that set in a harsh land% and this is not stupidity or 5ust a fa!t of life% but fearlessness in the fa!e of his mortality" A more dis!reet yet important trait of #ay)s is his thoughtfulness" 'e does not have mu!h of an edu!ation and feels as though he will have to struggle through life% purely through strength and hard work" 9t is true he does% but he is always shown as !ontemplative #ay wondered where things like that went when they were gone% and% even that young% he longed to go there *61- as he is views the loss he has in his life as something more then a foe that !auses sadness" .ater in life #ay)s thoughtful tenden!ies be!ome more intelligent% less abstra!t then #ay figured it out */+4- the dis!overy of a bullet near the !enter of a fully grown tree% #ay knows the kind of bullet it is and by !ounting the rings of the trunk and with the knowing the kind bullet he knows how it got there" Though #ay)s knowledge may be simple he has an insight that is more understanding to nature and whi!h allows him to see things as they are% than one from a !ity might" 8e!ause App was a smart man% who lost everything% but also kept three sons alive through great poverty and harsh winters% and be!ause of these !onditions as well #ay grows up with a good awareness of the harshness% beauty% and simpli!ity of what life really is" All of these part of #ay have been formed by the pla!e he grows up whi!h was an old !laim sha!k on a bit of land no one wanted% and the !onditions he was raised is% motherless and poverty stri!ken" ;rom these harsh !onditions #ay be!omes a thoughtful and kind man% yet very robust and hard working" The !limate% whi!h too was tough on his

life% formed him in the end to be mostly unafraid of the power that snow has over everything% and at times very apprehensive about the approa!h of a storm" 8ut these aspe!ts of his life also brought him to heavy drinking% whi!h too be!ame a part of him and probably also plays a role in molding his strange take on snow in these last three drunken years of his life" Then there is another element that too took a pla!e in who he is now% whi!h is his family" Mostly his father and younger brother made an impa!t on him% that was seen in the book% his father was also a sensitive man% who though smart lost almost everything taught ray to e&!ept things he was used to not knowing why *+/- be!ause he is a man not to offer many e&planations" #ay)s younger brother% Ja!k% seems to have !ontributed to #ay)s sensitivity be!ause he is weak as a !hild and as a motherless big brother #ay is every prote!tive" #ay is e&plained through Galvin)s eyes% but his !hara!ter !omes out !learly till the end of his story" 'e is an important part of the lives of the other people who live in the meadow be!ause he be!omes a friend% a neighbor% and a part of the winter lands!ape"