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Blurred Lines In Leif Enger's Peace Like A River

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Blurred Lines In Leif Enger’s Peace Like a River there is no doubt that there is good guys and bad guys, but the line drawn as to which is which is a fuzzy one. With Enger’s words the reader tends to feel sympathy for Davy and the Land family, but should we? After all Land’s commit many crimes. How far are you willing to go to protect your family, and where do you draw the line? Being uncooperative with law enforcement shows that Jeramiah Land is not as righteous as he appears to be, the Land family has a very blurred sense of right and wrong. Jeramiah claims to be on the right hand of God, performing miraculous acts and reading God’s words, but does being a religious person make it okay to do the wrong thing? When Davy’s girlfriend Dolly is attacked by Isreal Finch and Tommy Basca, Jeramiah, instead of turning the boys into the police, takes …show more content…

Rotten night out. Nine o’clock or thereabouts,’ Stanley said…’Well, he had something in his hand. A tire iron, I guess, or pry bar. Hard to tell in that rail. Anyway, he whacked every window out of the Finch boy’s car.’” (Stanley Basca to Elvis) (page 84) This passage from a trial scene, shows that Not only did Davy have no remorse for killing the two young men, he actually lured them to his home where his family slept unknowing. So, the reader is led to feel sympathetic towards a man who destroyed someone’s vehicle, lured criminals to his family home where his kid brother and sister slept, and then he shot the two boys in front of his eleven-year-old brother. Shooting Basca and Finch was all premeditated. Ruben states “Somehow he was holding the little Winchester he’d carried in the timber that afternoon. And holding it comfortably.” (page 49) Not only did Davy bring the gun to bed with him, but had the gun loaded and ready to go before the light was switched on to see who was at the door. This is the perfect picture of a person who has no other thought but to

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