Quarter 3 Post 3

In the last 50 pages, Cliff has only made it through Oregon and is now taking a break in California. Continuing the character development I mentioned in my last post, the philosophical side of Cliff is becoming more and more apparent. Personally, I think it's because he's spent so much time alone. After he dropped Marybelle off a while ago, he's been on his own and even declines to answer his cell phone. (About not answering his cell phone Cliff said, "Let them drift in the electronic void with their unspoken thoughts" (108-109). I'm not going to analyze this quote, I just really like the sentence and thought I'd share it.) Anyways, it's interesting when you're isolated like that because although you don't have anyone to bounce ideas and random thoughts off of, your thoughts become louder and clearer to take the place of company. At one point, Cliff is driving through Oregon and comes to a realization about himself. He says, "Here I was in very empty north-central Oregon where my own unforced errors played big from my brain's movie projector against the immense screen of landscape. I had been to damned wishy washy. I had let my disgust with teaching ruin my love of literature" (108). Mixed in with tales from his college years and his previous passion for good writing, it is easy to see that Cliff has just achieved something great. It's a great achievement when you realize something not so great about yourself, because although it might really suck to notice, it means you can see yourself from outside your little box. All his alone time has inspired great self-contemplation.

I've noticed that the motif I talked about in the first post has continued. For one thing, the Oregon puzzle piece was purple, which reminded Cliff of a friend's funeral (because the cloth in the casket had been the same color). Thinking about this friend inspired thoughts about death and control one has over their life. I do think this is significant because Oregon was quite the melancholy state, and the puzzle piece really set the tone for the chapter. Cliff forgets to toss away the puzzle piece at the end of the Oregon chapter, and finally remembers once he's spent a day or two in California. This passage reads, "Once more I had forgotten to throw away a puzzle piece and stopped near Little Cow Creek northwest of Redding, dropping Oregon in the water without emotion" (119). This makes quite a contrast with his emotional discovery of the purple piece. I think that all the reflection that occured in Oregon has sort of worn him out, emotionally, and so the careless way he gets rid of the piece shows how Cliff has become a little numb. In other news, Cliff has now stopped at his son Robert's condo in California for a little while. This is interesting because it's a break from the complete isolation he had been experiencing for the past week or so, and I'm interested to see what happens.

Harrison, Jim. The English Major. New York: Grove Press, 2008.