Evergreen Rose

Evergreen Rose:

        As time moves on, we will all be faced with decisions involving circumstances that have much greater inferences than the ones we usually face on a day by day basis. When this time comes, the way we respond will determine the outcome of how we shape ourselves. It can be easier to act in a more socially accepted manner, but in doing so, we cannot expect a personal gain. Going against what society has deemed acceptable can be very difficult but without it one may never change.  In the short story, The Glass Roses, the author Alvin Nowlan develops the idea that choosing to conform can lead an individual to live a life that does not truly reflect who they are on the inside. The result of living in this fashion can create a life of simplicity. Thus, when met with a different life one may be compelled into drifting away from the security of conforming to their family ideals. Stephen, a "willowy fifteen-year-old” struggles to become the ideal man, as modelled by his father. As such, his blossoming friendship creates an image with the consideration of another way of being.

        The text begins with our main protagonist, Stephen, staring enviously at a group of lumberjacks at a table with “humped backs and ox-like shoulders,” with the “huskiest and most solemn” foreman of the crew occupying the “bunkhouse.” This forearm being Stephen’s father. Having had lived with his father all his life, Stephen is now on the cusp of becoming a man, Stephen’s father and his fellow lumberjacks, whom possess a similar demeanor to each other, are the sole role models in Stephen’s life. It is evident to the reader that Stephen struggles to fill the footsteps of his father. He feels that, he is not strong enough to endure the harsh lifestyle of a pulp cutter; where his father is, “the huskiest and most solemn” of the men, representing the image of masculinity. All while appearing to be completely emotionless, so much that a simple card game is nothing but them “moving only their hands.” Stephen, on the other hand, finds himself easily exhausted mentally and physically by the workload, describing himself as “willowy.” Being in constant pain, he is convinced that his exhaustion is a sign of weakness; “he could never become a man.” Thus, Stephen knows that he has to start “actin’ like a man if (he) want(s) to hold down a man’s job.” Since, the line of work they do has “no room for kids,” Stephen is conflicted into conforming into the ideal man, in the fear that without doing so he will disappoint his father and his teachings. Despite all the efforts, “he could not think of himself as a woodsman.” Where for his father “the axe” is a part of their identity; Stephen feels, he is “pretending to be something he is not” as the axe “did not belong to him.” Thus, the harder he tries to overcome the “woods” around him, the more he gets pushed down. Seen by readers when Stephen’s “wrists burn” as he misses the mark on the tree with the axe, exerting too much force and having “the blade buckl(e).” Yet Stephen pushes on, trying to prove to his dad and himself that he is not a kid anymore. He tries is hard to see pride in “the cold, grey eyes” of his father. Until Leka is introduced into his life, Stephen assumes that the way his father lives is the only way to become a man, yet the more Stephen learns about Leka, the more his thinking starts to change.