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October 05, 2005
Ch. 13. House-Warming
"I withdrew yet father into my shell, and endeavored to keep a bright fire both within my house and within my breast. My employment out of doors now was to collect the dead wood in the forest, bringing it in my hands or on my shoulders, or sometimes trailing a dead pine tree under each arm to my shed."
This entire chapter was about him building a chimney and a fire. Fire in general has to be the greatest accomplishment anyone living in the wilderness can achieve. Only, this fire, symbolized his life in the woods. Steady, and undying. Something that only a person that lived as he did could understand. The structure of his chimney,I think means that he has beaten the odds, he is surviving winter, and he's loving it. He loves the simple things in life. His entire house was one room. And to some, that doesn't mean much, but to him, it was better then any palace money could afford. When he burned different types of wood, he generalized which woods burned for length, which for heat, and which for both. The fire is really inside him, never burning out completely, and leaving him with hope and warmth that there are better days for mankind to come.
Posted by ElizabethLudovici at October 5, 2005 02:18 PM
Comments
I like the way that you thought of the fire as what kept him going not only literally, but on the inside as well.
Posted by: Stacy at October 5, 2005 03:31 PM
I used the same quote Liz! I think the fire burning in his chest is like his passion to be in woods to learn something new. The fire does seem to represent his presence in the woods, still burning steady.
Posted by: Ashley Holtzer at October 6, 2005 09:21 AM