Brotherly Love In A River Runs Through It

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Family and Brotherly Love in A River Runs Through It
Theme plays such a big role in every novel or book. It is the main topic or main idea of a story which tells plenty of a story, it is a message that the author is trying to display. The major theme in this novel is family, with that he also materializes the minor theme brotherly love. Norman Maclean successfully utilizes character, conflict and setting to emphasize the theme in this novel which is family and how it plays such a big part in this novel and with that comes the brotherly love between Norman and Paul Maclean.
In this novel, characters is a big part the theme family. These characters like
Norman and Paul Maclean have such an attentive connection. Paul definitely affects the theme in the way that he is a lot more difficult than Norman. “Paul's brother and parents, as well as a number of townspeople, know of his troubles and all but inevitable fate that faces him”(Patrick K. …show more content…

This can be man vs. self in the way that the conflict with Paul includes his drinking and fighting which could lead to dangerous situations. In this novel Paul Maclean deals a lot with trouble due to how he gets himself into situations that he can't get himself out of. “At the end of the novel, when Norman tells his parents that Paul has been murdered, he continues, ‘my mother turned and went to her bedroom where … she had faced most of her great problems alone. … Perhaps she knew enough to know that for her it was enough to have loved him”(Patrick K. Dooley). This shows that Paul's mother had loved him so much no matter what, and Paul knew that, that was good enough. Norman and Paul's mother loved them both so much no matter what and that's where it comes back to the theme, which is