Montana 1948

Montana 1948 is about the loss of innocence and the painful gain of wisdom. Discuss.

Montana 1948 a series of tragic events were to have a major impact on David and his parents. David’s shocking revelations lead to his painful gaining of wisdom. When David’s story begins, his life is a stable and happy one, and his family are close and loving. It is this stability and respect though, in which the much loved and admired Frank is held by both the townspeople and David, that make the events which occur so shocking, particularly for David.

David must pretend, not just for the remainder of the novel, but for the next forty years, to be ignorant of Frank’s crimes, and much of what is happening because his parents do not realise that he has overheard their discussions.

A loss of David’s innocence appears during his killing of a magpie. This “it can be done in a flick of the finger”. The particular significance about this plays an important part in his as he considers that he also is capable of committing such unfortunate yet immoral things. “Looking in the dead bird’s eye, I realised that these strange, unthought of connections - sex and death, lust and violence, desire and degradation - are there, there, deep in even a good heart’s chambers”.

In David journey has is forced to see life in a more truthful and more painful way. He learns many lessons, but none more disturbing than that which follows Frank’s suicide. “You see, I knew - I knew! - I knew! That Uncle Frank’s suicide had solved all of our problems … I felt something for my uncle in death that I hadn’t felt for him in life. It was gratitude, yes, but it was something more. It was very close to love”.

Maturity may come at any age, but it is an experience that is rem...

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... Uncle Frank. Then I got out and watched him go down the tracks. He was going toward town…”. He chooses to tell his parents what he knows, or at least part of what he knows, about Uncle Frank. This shows that he is developing in the area of honesty. Before, David would have kept all this to himself, rather than face his parents with knowledge he knows will displease them.

David is not the only one struggling with a loss of innocence, his father also has a need for stability and beliefs. He unsuccessfully tries to convince himself, ‘in this world people must pay for their crimes………it doesn’t matter who you are or who your relations are; if you do wrong, you must pay. I believe that. I have to’. The fact that he could not or would not do anything to bring justice to franks actions stayed with him long after the event and all evidence of it had long since disappeared.