I enjoyed All the
Living, but I will admit I was frustrated with Aloma throughout much of the
novel. When it first began, I had high hopes – she was an educated girl, with
her skill in piano, and she had a dream to get out. However, when I read that
after graduation she agreed to be the staff pianist for school “because she had
nowhere else to go and no way to get there,” (15) I became very discouraged. It
was as if all hope was then dashed for Aloma and her independence.
Because she did not even try to go anywhere after school, I
cannot take Aloma seriously when she talks about the future. While Orren in
replacing a tire in his truck during one of their nighttime rides, she yells at
him, “Someday I’m gonna be a great piano player and we’re gonna get out of here”
(23). The fact that Orren merely nods back confirms that he does not believe it
either. On a separate occasion, when Aloma reminds Orren that she wants a new
piano and the chance to get a higher education, he tells her ‘maybe someday,’
but, “she saw the lie in the way he moved, heard it in his overearnest words”
(45). The book reinforces through interactions such as these that Aloma will
never leave or achieve her dream of becoming a great pianist.
We realize her final defeat when Aloma tells Orren, “I think
I have enough money saved now to rent a piano and I might could teach lessons
up at the house. I’ll make us some money that way” (192). In these words, Aloma
is officially giving up her dream. She is now married to Orren and her new
focus has become a way to help the household by bringing in extra cash. She had
lost the one passion that made her independent and now is bound to Orren
forever.
Now I’m irritated because with the ending C. E. Morgan
provides us, there is no chance for any advancement for the characters. We know
that Orren and Aloma will be on their farm, playing house, for the rest of
their lives. They may have children and they may have more successful years in
the future, but Aloma will never become a renowned pianist and Orren will never
leave the farm, which is all that is left of his family. I personally found
this ending of All the Living to be
tragic, not only because of the circumstances but also because I imagine this
situation of becoming tied down is very real for many people today. What are
other people’s reactions?
I don’t think Orren really wants to “leave this place” like Aloma does. He has tied himself to the farm, albeit partially not by his own choice, by deciding to work the farm as the last member of his family. Aloma is the one who has huge aspirations and dreams. Orren is content to work the farm, hopefully with Aloma, until he too dies there.
ReplyDeleteAloma does not necessarily give up her dreams to play on a grander scale completely. Becoming a great piano star has to start from somewhere, so why not as a church service player? When she first starts investigating the possibility of working there, she is just thrilled at the possibility that “she could play again” (62). If not for her fallout with Bell, perhaps she would have eventually moved on from the church for a more prestigious pianist position. In the end, continuing up the ladder as a pianist seems like it will contrast with her life with Orren, so she chooses a compromise; marrying Orren and simply being a piano teacher instead. You could even say that she is subconsciously influenced by her piano teacher, Mrs. Boyle, who had “given her the Mozart and Liszt that were now carefully packed away” (14). Aloma’s compromise allows her to keep the life she has become accustomed to while still maintaining a connection with the piano.
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ReplyDeleteI also found the conclusion of All the Living to be incredibly frustrating. I agree that Aloma essentially allows herself to become trapped in a life with Orren on the farm and that it is a tragedy that she abandons her dreams of a professional piano career. So in that respect I think that Aloma´s ultimate fate of being stuck is pretty easy to see and relate to. What is less obvious and, for me, more interesting is to look at Orren and what holds him to the farm. After reading the whole novel, I don´t really get the sense that Orren has any genuine desire to stay on the farm— it seems more like he feels compelled to stay and make it work as a tribute to his dead family. Even Aloma picks up on this when she says, “´Well don´t think for a second I belive you´re doing this for me. None of this is for me…All of this is for them, Orren, and they´re not even here´” (159). Orren is not working so hard on the farm because he enjoys farming or because he really wants a nice home in which he can get married and start a family, he is just trying to go back to a time when his family was alive and make them proud. The very reason Orren gives for wanting to marry Aloma finally proves this. He says, “´I´m alone so long as you got one foot half out the door´” (185). Orren wants to tie Aloma to the farm in the same way he is, to make sure she will always be there to help him run the property. He´s not motivated by any romantic feelings, just the insatiable urge to keep his family´s farm going, almost like a shrine to his deceased relatives. And for that reason, I think Orren is just as trapped as Aloma.
ReplyDeleteI also felt irritated by the lack of action on Aloma’s part throughout the novel. While she has all of these big goals and dreams, she lets them slip away as she settles down as a farmer’s wife. The life Aloma is accepting, the life of a farmer’s wife, seems so lonely. I think that the reason Aloma is able to live with this loneliness is because she is already accustomed to a rather lonely life. While Aloma is still in school, the narrator explains, “Aloma lived in this dark place… and it pressed on her ceaselessly as a girl until she finally realized in a moment of prescience that someday adulthood would come with its great shuddering release and she would be free” (p. 13). Aloma’s parents died when she was a young girl, and her aunt and uncle sent her off to school on her own. Aloma is forced to stand on her own at such a young age, yet she sees more for herself in the future. The problem is that the more she sees and wants isn’t the more she ends up getting.
ReplyDeleteYou could say that a life on the tobacco farm married to Orren is the life she really wanted, but I see it more as the life she settled for. When Orren proposes he tells Aloma, “… I don’t know how come it is I got to do everything alone,” and Aloma responds, “Orren, getting married’s not going to make you not alone… And I’ve been right here the whole time” (p. 185-186). Orren wants to marry Aloma because he feels alone, but she has been on the farm with him for some time now feeling just as alone as he has. Orren shows no care for Aloma’s loneliness; he expects Aloma to be there for him when he needs her. Sadly, Aloma just meets this expectation and marries Orren, giving up her independence and her dreams.