The setting of All the
Living is highly representative of the plights of its two main characters. Clearly, Aloma’s greatest dilemma is whether
she should stay with Orren or leave to pursue her independence as a
professional pianist. The mountain just beyond Orren’s land represents her life
with Orren, a life of rigid routine and obligation. Beginning at a young age,
Aloma resents the mountain and what it represents:
Aloma lived in this dark place, a
dark county in a dark state, 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. Then she would
leave and find a riseless place where nothing impeded the progress of the sun
from the moment it rose in the east until it died out easily, dismissed into
the west. That was what she wanted (13).
The many lands she has never seen and explored represent the
freedom that Aloma has craved for so long.
These lands make up a terrain as uncertain to Aloma as her potential
future of independence,
While the land itself represents Aloma’s plight, the two
houses on Orren’s land represent his plight.
Orren is grief-stricken at the tragic loss of his mother and brother,
and his grief has left him seemingly dark, heavy, broken down, and empty like
the old house in which he insists on staying. The house is dated, and so are the roles Orren
and Aloma play within the home. Aloma senses that Orren is bound to his grief
and the old house when she looks at the photographs of his lost family members: “It wasn’t fair…He was bound in perpetual
motion to all of them. She watched their pitiless eyes and her mouth
twisted. She wanted to say, I’m
defenseless before you, even if you are dead.
And they wanted to say back, Yes, yes, you are” (46).
Aloma feels that Orren has been taken from her by his grief
and replaced with a shell of his former self, a shell containing only memories
and obligations tied to the past. The
newer, smaller house on the property, however, represents the side of Orren
Aloma once knew, a lighter side which is now closed off from her just like the
small house. She comments, “It’s so much
nicer down here. It’s modern” (30). The
newer, smaller house also represents more modern relationship between Aloma and
Orren, a relationship built on a mutual emotional connection and support rather
than simply a working partnership. Both main characters are clearly torn, and the landscape reflects their conflicts.
I really like the points you made about various physical elements in the book representing the relationship between Orren and Aloma. I had also noticed that the mountains seemed to represent Orren and the way he makes Aloma feel trapped. The mountains are not only suffocating in a way that prevents the eye from surveying all the land, but they also block/limit the sunlight that falls into Orren’s farm. This parallels Orren and Aloma’s relationship because Orren has trapped Aloma in this desolate place with him and is also isolating her from the outside world. Their relationship is a double edged sword that is ruining both individuals.
ReplyDeleteI also drew connections to other physical objects, and in particular the old piano in Orren’s farmhouse as well as the piano in Bell’s house. Both pianos are not in the best of shape and are never used. However, Aloma’s reaction to both pianos is strikingly different and I think representative of how she feels about Bell and Orren. With the piano at Orren’s house, Aloma is able to appreciate how beautiful it once was, but she is almost disgusted with what is has become and refuses to even clean it. This parallels exactly how she currently feels with Orren and his changes. At Bell’s house, she admires the piano thoroughly and is automatically disappointed that Bell would let the piano fall into its state. She says, “She could not understand why everyone let the best things pass into disrepair and she would have thought Bell a better man than that, a man who could care especially for something—a piano, an old house, a woman” (136). This is revealing about how Aloma feels that Orren has let their relationship wither and rot just like the piano. It’s also indicative of the fact that Aloma definitely admires Bell for the type of man he is and wishes that she had that kind of caretaker in her life.
Here I think you touch on a really great point about how Aloma experiences her relationship in regards to the land. Where Orren seeks to protect and preserve the land because of its ties to the past, Aloma feels this sense of stasis as suffocating and overbearing. You're understanding of Orren as a "shell of his former self" perfectly compliments how Aloma feels about her status within the house. By only being able to complete housework and chores, Aloma grows "increasingly weary of the shell of the big house", and it becomes clear she longs for something more (62). Here, the land offers Aloma a plight and struggle through the stasis Orren forces upon it. By seeking to hold the land unchanged, it suffocates Aloma and her wishes and dreams. She largely exercises her freedom through the playing of the piano, and it is seen these moments have a liberating effect on her. Sitting down at the church, Aloma plays the piano and immediately feels satisfied, as she describes a sensory or transcendent moment with the piano, "inhal[ing] on her pleasure" and smelling "the the well-used piano, its waxy-wooded scent" (70). These moments of escape serve to highlight the imprisoned feeling Aloma experiences when she is at home. The static environment Orren forces on the land also impacts Aloma, causing her to seek a place of refuge to escape.
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