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In this novel Cole also went from very self-centered
Secondly, when Cole was dancing his anger dance, he danced late into the night. He continued to dance because he still had anger inside of him and he wanted to just throw it up. Out of nowhere Cole lunges at a tree and starts hitting it and says the words he’s never been to say before, “‘I forgive you,” he cried loudly. “I forgive you’” (232).
Instead, he suffered as a result of his choices in life. Cole has been lonely all his life, and this has led to him to start doing things that have hurt and harmed others as well as himself for attention. Cole's feelings have been written on chapter 8, page 73 as "every action worked against him and hurt him deeply, a bitter loneliness swept over him as tears clouded his vision. " Cole felt alone, but only recognized it when he was on the brink of death. This, in turn, led to Cole trying to fill the loneliness with other things like violence and theft, which nearly lead him to his death.
In the novel, Touching Spirit Bear, Cole Matthews is quick to anger, which is like me. And by looking at Cole’s interactions with others and his background I can say that it is a little bit similar to me. And in my opinion, Cole is just a broken child who needs love and light in his life, and by doing that he breaks the law and has anger issues. My opinion of Cole is that is because I know that having a childhood full of trauma and despair, will have long-lasting effects on you and will forever change. And I know this because I know someone who changed after their grandmother died, suddenly became quiet and quick to anger and was never the same.
In the book Touching Spirit Bear, Cole does many things with major consequences. His anger mainly controls these things, but when Cole finds himself lying on the ground as good as dead, he realizes that he's not a good person, and he realizes what he has done. Here are some consequences and mistakes that Cole has made in the past to get to this point. In the first few chapters, Cole was ruthless.
The first thing that Gavin helped Cole with was to get him into circle justice to get him to go to an island so he could learn responsibility. When they got there, Cole was very mad and did not want to be there. This is also when the spirit bear came in. Right now Cole is full of anger and does not want to be on the island and then he sees the spirit bear
Cole was beaten by him throughout his childhood. This pain and anger gave him the personality and characteristic to inflict pain on other people. The two final themes have a very strong connection. In order to heal, mentally and physically, you have to learn to forgive and receive forgiveness. This was a lesson the reader and the main character, Cole, experience throughout the book.
There were moments where you could feel sad for Cole, angry at Cole, happy for Cole, the list goes on and on. “As if finishing it’s attack, the Spirit Bear placed it’s huge pawson Cole’s chest and gave a single hard shove. Air exploded from Cole’s lungs. Ribs snapped. Mouth wide open, Cole gasped but could not catch his breath.
The relationships in Cole’s life all had a different impact on him but specifically his relationship with Peter affected him a lot. Especially the part of the book when Cole found out that Peter told on him. “‘You’re a dead man,’ he warned... He laughed when he saw fear in Peter’s eyes”(7-8). This shows the relationship at the beginning of the book and clearly it wasn’t good.
At the beginning of the novel, Cole Matthews is a vicious teenager who thinks he is superior to everyone, but is, in fact, hiding behind a shield of anger, the result of being brutally abused by his drunken father. Cole’s father, Mr. Matthews, drinks non stop until he becomes a monster, and then ruthlessly beats Cole up. When talking to Garvey, a proud, Tlingit indian, who is also his parole officer, Cole opens up about his father’s abuse saying, “‘You don’t know what it’s like being hit over and over until you’re so numb you don’t feel anything!” (Mikaelsen 28).
Physically by his father while intoxicated. To the point where he was numb, that's how severe the beating was. Emotionally he was abused by his mom. As Cole was getting beaten by his drunk father his mother would just sit there and watch him get beaten. That made him think that she didn't care about him because if she did she would have stopped his father
Throughout the novel by Ben Mikealson, many characters have a heavy influence on Cole’s mental and physical life as he goes through this journey. Some of these characters include Garvey, a prison guard who supports Cole and helps him get over his anger, Peter, the now-disabled boy who Cole doesn’t know how to feel about, and Cole’s father, who beats Cole regularly for no reason, the flame that sparked Cole’s anger.
When he is given the opportunity to save those who he cares about, he desperately replies, ¨ Anything please! I'll do anything to save her¨( Robertson 66). Cole is deemed both a hero and a villain in the book, in a typical “can not save everyone” scenario. He is resented for this action and hated by many. That is a lot of stress and tension in itself for a teenager to deal with, which he does admirably as shown further in the book.
Everything will turn out right in the end, and Cole exhibits this. The whole reason that Cole ended up o the island in the first place is because he made bad choices. These choices led to more bad choices and then Cole had a traumatic experience. This changes Cole’s life forever.
Because of his abrupt behavior, Cole has done many unintelligent things, such as burning his shelter on the island. His anger is his choice if Cole communicates by showing anger, isn’t he responsible for all of his actions? Cole has runined so many options of a better life that have come to him. It isn’t surprising that Cole wasn’t in support of the banishment process. In chapter 2, Cole started to search for an escape on the island, he loathed the shelter, the lonleyness, and the fact that he has no one to blame.