Montana 1948

Montana 1948

  • Submitted By: tuckerm
  • Date Submitted: 08/31/2008 8:23 AM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 709
  • Page: 3
  • Views: 2

In Larry Watson’s novel Montana 1984 the character Wes Hayden is faced with a very difficult decision; loyalty to justice or loyalty to his brother. Throughout Wes’s life he has been overshadowed by the success of his brother Frank. Wes seems to accept his role as the “other Hayden boy” and goes about his life in a quiet docile manner. Wes’s father Julian is an obnoxious and surly man who does not hide the fact the he has a great deal more affection for Frank than Wes. Gail who is Wes’s wife who is not from Montana, urges Wes to leave Bentrock and pursue his law career away from the pressures of his domineering family. Wes is a man trying to turn two ways at once, towards his father and towards his wife, and in doing that he moves in neither direction.


“When comparisons were made between Frank and my father (Wes), my father was bound to suffer”. This insight given by David about his father’s relationship with his brother Frank very much came to light in the summer of 1948. Frank is seen as the town hero, he was an exceptional athlete in his youth and a decorated soldier, whilst Wes could not go to war or play sports due his injured leg. The physical prowess that Frank possessed led to him become arrogant whereas Wes learnt humility through the constraints of his injury. This contrast of arrogance and humility between Wes and Frank is most prominent at Frank’s homecoming picnic when Frank is being adored and adoring the attention of the crowd and Wes turns away and begins to pick up rubbish. This scene can also be applied as a metaphor for the events that transpired in 1948; Frank behaves in an arrogant power hungry manor and Wes is left to clean up the mess. Until the fateful summer of 1948 Frank had breezed through life with charm and physical dominance but suddenly his criminal actions landed him in a situation that neither charm nor physical dominance would rectify. Frank had not endured too much hardship in his life being a superb physical specimen and...

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