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River Runs Through It By Keelan Bartlett

843 Words4 Pages

River Runs Through It Keelan Bartlett In the book River Runs Through It by Norman Maclean It is about a guy named Norman who has a lot of different people around him, especially his brother who needs help. Norman finds it very hard throughout the book to give help to others because either the person doesn’t want help, or he doesn’t like the person enough to put energy into helping that person. Throughout the book, Paul, the younger brother, needs help. He has a bad drinking problem, he gambles, he fights, he is broke, and just needs help, but the problem is that he doesn’t want help from anyone but his brother because he respects his brother Norman. But, Norman doesn’t know that his brother needs help, and even if he gets little clues that …show more content…

He did not want any big brother advice or money or help” (Maclean pg.6). Maclean uses this quote to show how Norman thinks that Paul is a perfect being with no problems, and that Norman doesn’t need to help his brother in any way. The reason why Paul only wants to receive help from Norman is because Paul respects Norman. The father of Norman and Paul seems to be wise and know what is happening and that Paul needs help but because of what happened in the past “The hotter my father got, the colder the porridge, until finally my father burned out” (Maclean pg.6). In this figurative quote, Paul won over his father over a bowl of oatmeal, which causes Paul to lose respect towards his father. Paul has never won against Norman and that’s why Paul still holds respect towards Norman, but Norman doesn’t know this and that’s why Norman doesn’t know that Paul needs help. Paul isn’t the only one that needs help. Normans’ brother-in-law Neal is also a very bad alcoholic and is broke like Paul. Another problem that Neal has is that he has a bad influence on him. Old Rawhide is a prostitute that sticks with

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