The Power of the River in A River Runs Through it.
Jason Bullen
Hillard
CompII
Oct 10
The Power of the River in A River Runs Through it
Water has always played significant roles in stories as well as in our lives. Throughout time, it has always been considered powerful, majestic, and respected. In Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through it. This image of water is clearly seen. The entire timeline of the story begins at the river and ends at the river. The author’s love and respect of the river indicted him to refer to it many times, and in many different ways. Sometimes just as a river, but mostly he referred to it metaphorically and symbolically as not just a river that flows with no meaning, but of something wonderful and important that beautifully travels with no end.
The river itself had been the center of Paul and Norman’s life. It was said that, “In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly-fishing”(1). Being Presbyterians, and sons of a Reverend, but also being sons of a fly-fisherman on the Big Black foot. Norman and Paul learned from their father that “man by nature was a mess and had fallen from an original state of grace”(2). But they also learned that “all good things—trout as well as eternal salvation—come by grace and grace comes by art and art does not come easy”(3). Theodore Weinberger said in “Religion and Fly fishing: Taking Norman Maclean Seriously” that “To practice an art is to glorify God. Art allows the human being to sanctify the profane. For Reverend Maclean, the four-count rhythm is the most artful way of fishing because it best allows for the glorification of God”(n.p.). Whenever they needed time to relax the river was always there to take away their problems. It also was the only place where Paul and Norman really felt like they were the same as each other. Outside the river, they were two completely different people. Norman, a responsible person with a goal in life, and Paul an irresponsible person headed straight for destruction. But once they reached the Big Blackfoot they felt together again. Every since childhood, fishing the river had been the relaxant among the family. After their father’s sermons, “His chief way of recharging himself was to recite to us from the sermon that was coming, enriched here and there with selections from the most successful passages of his morning sermon”(1-2). Because of the combination of religion and fly-fishing, fly-fishing was not just a sport, it was an art form and “nobody who did not know how to fish would be allowed to disgrace a fish by catching it”(3).
