Monday, October 17, 2011
The Hero
Ms. Schieffelin warned us that the end of the story was a tear jerker but I didn't know how much to believe her until after I had finished. It was such an emotional ending and it really made me fall in love with the book. I had liked the story up until about page 200 but I wasn't quite yet 100% sold on it; however, after finishing the last 75 pages I really fell in love with it. I really sympathized with the grandfather and have developed quite a respect for him. It must have taken so much strength to not only live through the murder of Hershel but then relive it and admit it. He has had to carry around this burden with him his entire life and I really respect him as a man. So if I had to call anyone a hero in this novel I would definitely dub the grandfather as one. Although what he did to Hershel was horrible and you would think that would make him the opposite of a hero I think the strength it took to move on from that, continue living and then when he's old and frail to go back and relive it is just that of a hero.
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I agree, but I I think I would go any further. I think the story that he tells is set up in such a manner that its really saying that he wasn't a bad person. It was a terrible thing that he did, but who wouldn't have done the same? He was faced with eitherh is own death, or anothers, and while the more noble path would certainly be to take the bullet, how many people could really do that? I think that is why Alex is the person whoo the story is really meant for. He's there to protect his grandfather, and he is the only one who knows him well enough to understand what had happened, and judge him on his own and fairly. And if you take the rcently-revealed family resemblance a little further, you could say that Grandfather isn't even confessing to Alex, he's confessing to himself. He's telling the story to another part of him, and waiting for his own judgement. He feels terrible about what happened, but he doesn't know if it was wrong or right, so he looks to Alex as himself to find out.
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