Candace Gay Memorial Awards

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Second-Prize Essays

Wednesday
At Home and Free at Last
Kristen N. Conrad
Howland High School

The raging cold screams against his back at night. Her father’s drunken jeers make her shiver as she cowers in the corner of her room. Both have natural families, yet both have been driven to flee from these families. She flees because her life amongst family is terrifying, loveless, and oppressive. He flees because he believes that his family has grown arrogant and materialistic, and is thus oppressive as well.

She is the title character of Kaye Gibbons’ Ellen Foster, and he is Chris McCandless, a real young man portrayed by Jon Krakauer in Into the Wild. In their respective stories, Ellen and Chris both find themselves on their own, each taking a journey farther and farther away from his or her family as each searches for truth and personal satisfaction. Neither Chris nor Ellen seems to regret leaving home, but their reasons for fleeing are quite different. Ellen is attempting to escape from her family because she desires love and a stable setting in which there are people to nurture her, while Chris is trying to avoid just that. Ellen’s code of ethics places strong value upon family and friends; Chris’s, however, spurns human companionship because he seems to feel that it pollutes his relationship with nature and with the one upon whom the course of his life depends the most: that is, himself.

Upon first glance at the character of Ellen Foster, one might be inclined to believe that she is not a lonely child starved for affection but a cold-blooded villain. Gibbons’ novel opens with Ellen’s blunt statement, “When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy” (1). As Ellen describes her daddy and his sinister deeds, however, it becomes apparent that this is a daddy who many perfectly sane, moral people might want to kill.

Unfortunately for Ellen, though, it is her mother who is killed first. Ellen is fully aware that her mother has overdosed on heart medication and that her father is not ignorant of the act, but she does not take any action because her father threatens to kill her if she does so. Plus, she is only a child and realizes that she is relatively powerless against him. As a result, Ellen does the only thing she can: She goes to sleep beside her dying mother. She may not say it herself, but Ellen loves her mother. By sleeping beside her dead mother, the heartbreaking picture of childhood innocence, Ellen is attempting to hold on in the only way she can.

When she stays for a short time with her Aunt Betsy, she assumes she is staying with her forever; the same holds true when she is in the temporary care of her art teacher. Eventually, Ellen’s desire for a family becomes so strong that she petitions a foster mother herself, journeying to the woman’s house and even offering her money. Ellen’s past living situations all included a house in which she lived, but now she has truly found the family she needs and cherishes.

Chris McCandless is a wolf without a pack. According to his family, he had always been prone to straying from his family and friends, even going as far as to take a solo road trip across the country the summer after his high school graduation. During his last year in college, he lived without a telephone and had not attempted to contact his family very often. In Into the Wild Krakauer reports that after Chris graduates from college, he was “unencumbered, emancipated from the stifling world of his parents and peers. . . a world in which he felt grievously cut off from the raw throb of existence” (22).

After his flight from civilization, Chris occasionally befriended a few people, but he did not allow himself to grow close with them. When his travels took Chris to Carthage, South Dakota, a deep bond formed between him and a man named Wayne Westerbert. For a while, it seemed that Chris was going to settle down in Carthage, but he eventually left. Nonetheless, he sent occasional letters and postcards to his Carthage friends and other whom he met in his travels.

His own family, however, seemed to disgust him. He viewed them as hypocritical and materialistic. As his friend Eric Hathaway reports, “[Chris] had trouble with the whole idea of parents” (115). Indeed, it would appear that Chris McCandless viewed families as miniature copies of human society, and they, therefore, suffocated him. He seemed more at home with the harsh elements of nature, which disciplined and taught him like dutiful parents. Even though he died as a result of his journey toward truth and freedom from the fetters of society, Chris was alone with nature, which was his idea of true family.

The nurturing bodies that aid the growth of Ellen Foster and Chris McCandless are complete opposites. Ellen thrives on human love and acceptance, eating it like the sweetest fruit of the shadiest tree, while Chris bathes in snowstorms and nestles into the elements as if he sleeps in a home-sewn quilt. Each character  endures a long journey to attain security, but in the end, they both arrive home, where they are free at last.
 

Question: What do a Swahili tribesman, a Grecian shepherd, and a Canadian college student have in common?
Answer: Not much.

Besides the obvious characteristics that define us as humans, people from opposite corners of the world often have few similarities. The different customs, religions, and standards that shape us vary so much that no one shares beliefs and ethical codes with another. We are unique. Such is confirmed by the English Festival books. It would not have been realistic had the authors of these works made the characters mirror each other. The authors’ characters, therefore, are created as genuinely lifelike and nearly human. The characters are not portrayed as having similar moral values because that is not how it is in the actual world.

Take the two brothers Tim and Sam, for instance, in James and Christopher Collier’s My Brother Sam Is Dead. Though they are raised together in the same household by the same mother and father, the two boys’ beliefs and values are completely different. During the turbulent times of the American Revolution, Sam, the older brother, leaves college to show his unyielding support for the patriots’ cause. The English, he reasons, had oppressed the good people of the American continent though outrageous taxation and other injustices ever since colonization. Sam’s father, a devout Tory loyal to the British crown, will have no part in his son’s position or activities and disowns him, yet Sam remains steadfast and goes directly against his father’s will by joining the Revolutionary Army. He regards strength, courage, and the will to fight and possibly die for what one believes as noble traits.

Tim, on the other hand, is still a teenager under the rules of his father, who had directly commanded his two sons to stay out of the Revolution. Torn between love for his brother and high respect and regard for his father, Tim is lost in a fog. He could join Sam and help the rebellion, but that would contradict his father’s orders, and he isn’t really sure if he is a patriot or a loyalist—he is undecided. Obviously more conservative than his older brother, Tim feels that obeying his parents and family togetherness are much more important than the American Revolution. The two brothers, though in some ways alike, have opposed, deep-rooted feelings about the Revolution and the importance of family.

In Christopher Paul Curtis’s novel, The Watsons Go to Birmingham—1963, Byron, one of the major characters, is a teenaged boy growing up in the cold of Lansing, Michigan. In the story’s beginning, Byron is depicted as a good-for-nothing hoodlum who terrorizes the younger children in his neighborhood, particularly his brother. Byron beats third-graders, steals cookies, and defies his parents’ every word. After months of misbehavior, his parents finally decide to take Byron, who by this time has degenerated to having almost no moral standards at all, to stay at his grandmother’s house in Birmingham, Alabama, for an entire summer.

During the long drive to the South with his family, however, a change takes place in Byron. As a matter of fact, when the car pulls up to their grandmother’s house after three days on the road, Byron is unbelievably rather nice and almost (gasp!) polite. His morals and ethical standards change so much that instead of fighting with his brother, he actually saves his life! Compared to himself earlier in the story, the “new” Byron is a different person entirely—a changed man! He is transformed. Not only do virtues differ amongst people, but, as Byron demonstrates, they can also change in the same person.

Because our mental viewpoints are sculpted by the environment that surrounds us, no two people are alike; we are all different from birth. As our attitudes toward life change as we experience it, our values and ethical codes alter also. What one highly values another may acknowledge as a trifle. As Sam and Tim illustrate, not even brothers share similar moral codes, and Byron proves that people themselves can change to such an extent that they are a different person completely.  Though humans may appear to reflect each other physically, that aspect is only skin deep. It is what’s beneath it, our values, that separate one person from another.

Two totally different places, two totally different time periods. Most people would feel that any two people fitting this description would have different values and beliefs. Their ideas are somewhat different, but is it possible that they could be very much alike, too? It is possible, and Sam Meeker, from My Brother Sam Is Dead and Aerin from The Hero and the Crown illustrate this idea perfectly. These two characters are from different times and places, and they are even different genders; however, even if they differ quite drastically in some beliefs, they share many morals.

Sam Meeker is a smart, brave young man fighting in the American Revolution. Living in Redding, a mostly Loyalist town, Sam is not a Loyalist. His family supports the English king; however, this does not keep Sam from fighting to defeat the British and become free and independent. Sam is so loyal to his country that he even tells his father that gaining freedom is worth the risk of dying.

Sam is a stubborn, headstrong young man who believes that if he has to fight a war to solve a problem, he should fight the war and fight until it’s over. He is a determined person who believes that a task has to be finished, even if that task is fighting a war. He even insists on reenlisting in the army until the war has been won or lost.

Sam is also a very independent thinker who doesn’t always follow in his family’s footsteps. He believes that everyone is his/her own person, no matter who his/her family is. Sam argues constantly with his family, never giving in to their side. He tells his mother that his duty to his country comes before family obligations. Sam Meeker is an admirable young man in almost everyone’s eyes. To get this admiration, Sam believes that people should be proud of their accomplishments and boasting about them isn’t rude. He is always telling everyone what he has been able to accomplish, and it definitely gets him a lot of admiration. Overall, Sam is a well-rounded young man with many strong values and beliefs.

Similarly, Aerin also has many strong moral values. Aerin is a member of royalty in the city of Damar. She is a stubborn and headstrong young woman who believes that focusing on the future is better than dwelling on the past. She also feels that people should not be judged by who their families are, because not all people are exactly like their families. Hoping she will never be known as the “witch-woman,” as her mother was, Aerin asks herself if she is truly like her mother. Aerin is a determined young lady who won’t stop until a job is totally finished. She keeps trying her hardest to find the Hero’s Crown and save Damar, and she never once gives up.

Aerin also believes that she should always follow her instincts and never be influenced by other people’s opinions. Not boasting about accomplishments is what she believes to be the best choice. She doesn’t even want any type of honor for killing the Great Dragon, and she seems shy and embarrassed after killing her first dragon. Aerin also believes that problems should be solved as peacefully as possible, trying to avoid war. She believes that royalty should be looked up to, no matter what their past is, but she doesn’t believe that royalty should be totally out of touch with the people. Overall, Aerin is a strong-minded young lady with many strong morals and beliefs.

Sam Meeker and Aerin share many values and beliefs. They both believe that once a person has started something, he or she must finish it. It doesn’t matter how simple or complicated the task is. They also believe that people need to focus on the future, not the past. Dwelling on the harsh moments of the past can keep people from carrying out their plans and may ruin their futures. Aerin and Sam share the belief that family does not always come first and that a person should not be judged by whom his or her family may be. They feel that each person is special and has the right to this or her beliefs, even if those beliefs conflict with those of loved ones. Last, they believe that an individual should follow his or her instincts and not be influenced by other’s opinions. They believe in doing whatever feels right to them, not what feels right to everyone else.

However, the rest of Sam’s and Aerin’s values and beliefs are very different, some of them exactly opposite. Sam believes in doing absolutely anything to solve a problem, even fighting a war. On the other hand, Aerin tries to solve everything as peacefully as possible so no one gets hurt, and she hates war. Their beliefs about kings and royalty also differ. Sam is fighting with all he’s got against the English king because he wants to be free and independent. Aerin believes that all people should be loyal to royalty and that royalty should be respected. Sam is very proud and boastful after he achieves an accomplishment, and he believes everyone should be that way. Aerin is a little bit embarrassed about most of her accomplishments, and she keeps many of them to herself.

Two totally different places, two totally different times. Some of Sam Meeker’s and Aerin’s values and beliefs are different, as would be expected; however, they also believe in some incredibly similar values. Some people may ask how it is possible that they have the same values, being from different times; others may ask how it is possible that values and beliefs could change over time. To me, it is not merely about time and location; it is about the individual person. Values and beliefs come from within each person, and Aerin and Sam are excellent examples to prove this. All of their moral values have come about for specific reasons that only they have. Values and beliefs come from the person, not from time and place.
 
 

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