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The Mountain and the Valley: The Symbolic Mountain of Davids dreams and hopes. The mountain slopes were less than a mile high at their top-most point but they shut the valley in completely. (Buckner, 7). Our first view of the Mountain in Buckner's classic The Mountain and the Valley prepares us for its importance throughout the novel. Its presence haunts David throughout his life; it is symbolic of fulfilment and Davids desire to leave the Annapolis Valley, but due to circumstances remains un surmountable.
The mountain is a symbol that deeply influences Bucklers narrative and t pervades the story, by representing both Davids dreams and inability to leave: beginning in his childhood, continuing through his adolescence, his young adulthood, and finally following him into the grave. In his youth the protagonist of the story, David Canaan, is a sensitive boy who becomes increasingly aware of the difference that sets him apart from his family and his neighbours. He views his first trip to the mountain as a large step in his life, even at the age of eleven. Buckner portrays Davids childish delight (at finally being big enough to go fishing on the mountain) as an adventure: As they came close to the mountain, it was so exciting that David was almost afraid. (Buckner 22) This attempt to scale the mountain fails, as do all Davids attempts to climb the mountain except his final one, they were crossing the bridge to start to climb the mountain when they heard the voices (Buckner 23). Davids father ends their excursion because of the death of valley farmers Pete and Spurge.
The tragedy and death in the valley makes Davids journey to the mountain impossible. Before he faces the news that he knows is bad from the other valley men approaching, he must touch it, [the mountain road] anyway, before he knew indisputably that the day was over (Buckler, 34), symbolically searching for what he missed. The mountain, in Davids mind, represents something better, or grander, than his rural valley life. The prevailing theme of David not quite getting beyond the mountain begins here, in his youth. Later in the novel, when David is twelve, on the trek up to find a Christmas tree, David asks his sister Anna If anyone walked through the mountain, weeks and weeks, I wonder where hed come out. (Buckler, 56) The mystical question of what was beyond the mountain is lingering in his mind even during this happy moment, in Davids innocent youth. The mountain throws its influence into childhood of Anna, Davids twin sister, in a different way.
Anna sees A rainbow arched from mountain to mountain. (Buckler, 29). This symbolizes Annas later flight from the Valley and ability to mesh although she never quite gets it right- both the city life of Halifax and her country existence in the Annapolis Valley. The rainbow appears almost faded over the valley (Buckler 22). This shows how Anna will become detached from her childhood home, as she makes the premonition that she later fulfils of marrying a sailor.
In Davids adolescence, the mountain takes on a more defined shape in his mind. At age 13, The mountain across the lake looked like a far-off furniture of a dream. (Buckler 88). Davids thoughts of his future, while pondering death and helping his family fix the old graves in the cemetery, are very positive. He shudders to think of Anna in the cemetery, but does not picture himself there.
He believes he will be something great, and his dreams are still attainable in his mind, and the mountain looked to him as if, with one great leap, he could touch it. (Buckler, 88) Just as, when hes 14, the afternoon, in a steady hush seemed to bring the mountains closer (Buckler, 96). David begins to push the mountains, and what they represent, to the back of his mind. His dreams are attainable and fulfilment of them an inevitability of the future. Toby the city boy from Halifax who visits David (and is also a character foil of David) - is introduced when they both are nearly sixteen. Toby becomes Davids only friend, and doesnt understand when David tells him that you can see everything (Buckler, 138) from the top of the mountain.
Anna, David and Toby turn back after starting up the mountain, and once again David is unsuccessful at climbing to the top of the symbolic mountain. He is frustrated when Toby says that It isnt like it was a real mountain What makes it so wonderful? (Buckler, 138). David is looking for understanding from the outsider Toby, and doesnt receive it. The mountain, or misunderstanding of it shows how different Toby and David are and how Davids ambitions and dreams seem small, and are not understood by Toby.
Davids desire to leave the Annapolis Valley and dreams of fulfilment seem to pale, or seem unrealistic the thought of the mountain went as lint-gray as the toes of his larrigan's in November slush. (Buckler, 139) - when the wordily boy from Halifax comments on the mountain. Dave enters the world of a young adult through heartbreaking circumstances: his girlfriend dies and he feels somehow responsible, sleeps with his girlfriends mother and tries (unsuccessfully) to leave home. Yet, his childish excitement (Buckler, 168) about the mountain remains. Joseph, Davids father, suggests he and his son, now 19, and the rest of the family, go to the top of the mountain in search of a large tree for a keel. The mountain is finally resurfacing in Davids mind after the string of bad circumstances, and the mountain shows us that David is beginning to hope again. He wonders why, though he was nineteen hed never been to the very top yet. (Buckler, 168).
They begin their trek up the mountain, but are stopped again by returning Toby and Anna, and it becomes another failed attempt -in Toby's new car to reach the top of the mountain. The mountain illuminates the separateness beginning in David. David believed that if he had been going to the top of the mountain with his family alone, their bond would have been the trip (Buckler, 172), and that with Toby that he could have shared toby's excitement: not because of the mountain but the car (Buckler, 172). David is left unfulfilled and wanting more. Climbing the mountain alone never enters his mind at this point. He feels separate and cut off from his family, as though he had to keep up a balancing act (Buckler 178) to keep everyone happy.
The mountain therefore shows davids inability to be content or fulfilled, as he has to act or balance in the presence of his family, but David is still clinging to the hopes that the mountain represent. In the final stages of Davids short life, his adulthood, he recognises the dual nature of the mountain. His Illness and his fathers death trap him into the monotonous life of a farmer, where his thoughts clung low to his brain, like the clouds that curled above the mountain. (Buckler, 221) His inability to act, and his beliefs that he can still attain his dreams are shattered. David sets out, determined to climb his mountain, and his tendrils of thought begin to curl outward (Buckler 280). David begins his final trek to the top of the mountain, this time absolutely alone (Buckler, 281). He experiences a mental breakthrough of sorts, and recognises his dreams and inability to attain them for what they are.
He is seized with a new positive outlook, and believes that he can live again and begin again (Buckler 182). The Shape and colour reach out to him like voices (Buckler, 281) and David sees the faces of everyone he knows on his journey up the mountain, forgiving each one: all the faces there were everywhere else in the world, at every time waited for him (Buckler, 289). The mountain, as a symbol of his, is no longer un surmountable, in Davids mind. This new awakening is ironic and as he raised his head and saw that he was at the very top of the mountain (Buckler 291), simultaneously telling himself he will tell them just as they are, but people will see there is more to them than the side that shows (Buckler, 294), David drops dead.
Davids old ideals about his dreams, represented by the mountain, are back just before his death. The book ends with David as a grey body falling swiftly. exactly down over the far side of the mountain. (Buckler, 296). David, ironically, reaches his goal in death. He sees everything, as he Told toby he would in his childhood, at the top of the mountain. The mountain followed David throughout his short life, as a symbol for his dreams and desire to become-or be-somewhere beter as a child, as his desire to leave as an adolescent, and as the realization that he is trapped ignoble to leave in his adult life.
Each of Davids dreams were realized in his death, through the influence of the mountain. The book David longed to write down when he finally reached the top can also be read the portrait of the people that he yearned to write is the novel itself, The Mountain and the Valley.
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Research essay sample on Top Of The Mountain Desire To Leave
