Idea of the Power of Traditional Ways in Healing the Earth in Literature - Essay Example

Not surprisingly then that the motif of human connection with nature can be found in many works of art. In our turn, we can examine how the idea of the power of traditional ways in healing the earth and giving hope to people may be voiced through literature by comparing aspects of two short stories, one by Jeanette C. Armstrong named “This is a Story” and another by Maurice Kenny named “Rain”.
The story with the straightforward title “This is a Story” written by Jeanette Armstrong contains a narrative that for many modern readers might seem unusual. In fact, this literary work as if consists of two separate realities recreated by the author. The first reality is only present for a brief time in the beginning and the very end of the story and depicts the familiar to us world of the narrator who, apparently, is a person from our modern society typically attracted to nature. The second reality, which forces its way through the narrator and constitutes the main part of the story, is of a mythic tone as it resembles what might be a legend. So, this juxtaposition of various dimensions of reality may be viewed as a tool used by the author to illustrate the contradictoriness of a modern man who cannot help but feel the attraction of the old traditional way of life, which for the narrator is “. . . a powerful one. I tell it now because it`s true” (Armstrong, p.135), and therefore holds a promise of returning the lost sense of life, and still must confront our modern setting, like “. . . when I see rainbow colors in the oil slicks along the river, during the salmon-run time. . . ” (Armstrong, p.135). All in all, at the end of the story the author manages to bring closer points of view of characters from both realities as readers, can begin to wonder whether the story that “came . . . one morning early” (Armstrong, p.129) to the narrator is the silent work of mythic Kyoti, who is beginning to wake ‘Swallow’-like people from their self-destructive activities.
The short story by Maurice Kenny “Rain” is thematically similar in many aspects to the topic of the previously discussed literary work, and it also contains allusions to several realities within one narrative. But in contrast to Armstrong, Kenny chose a more realistic approach to the setting, plot composition, and the process of developing and portrayal of characters.