A Close Relationship with Nature

A CLOSE RELATIONSHIP WITH NATURE

Cold Mountain is a four hundred and forty-nine-page novel by the North Carolina author Charles Frazier. The novel takes place during the civil war but constirates more on the life lessons each character learns. Throughout the novel Charles Frazier takes each character through very different, yet very difficult journeys. Cold Mountain consists of two parallel journeys, eventually meeting up in the end.

Each one of Cold Mountains characters are all very conscious about nature and have learned to appreciate and even revolve daily routines around it.

Man is one major character that has been deeply effected by nature. He is able to understand the beauty of nature and trys to absorb as much as possible. He carries along his Bartram, a book filled of poems and stories all on the topic of nature.

“He told her how it helped sustain him on his journey, how he had read it many a night by the firelight of a lonesome bivouac. Ada was unfamiliar with it, and Inman described it to her as a book concerned with its very part of the world and with everything that was important in it. He shared with her his view that the book stood nigh to holiness and was of such richness that one might dip into it at random and read only one sentence and yet is sure of finding instruction and delight (415).”

This book helps Inman get through many tough times and finds the book to be very comforting and relaxing. Inman's journey back home from after leaving the hospital has made him a stronger person and more down to earth. Inman has seen nature as a positive and a negative thing on his journey. It has helped him get along and survive. Lending him a place to hide out from the cold and the home guards.

“He went at a dead run to the line of trees and brush beyond the spring. He plunged in and then, hidden from sight, he worked his way around until he found a thick stand of twisted laurel situated to give him a view of the front of the house (311)”

Nature has provided him with food, and even helped with its landmarks to give him a guideline of where he is and the direction he should be traveling to get back to Ada. Nature helped him understand his dreams and what he thought of such animals. It helped him build such strong beliefs towards not hurting the good things that come from nature.

“In the final dream, though, he was shot by hunters after a long chase. He was strung from a tree by a rope about his neck and skinned, and he watched the process as from above. His dripping red carcass was as he knew an actual bear’s to be after skinning: that is to say, manlike, thinner than one would expect, the structure of paws beneath the fur long like a man’s hand. With the killing , the dreams had run their course, and he awoke that last morning feeling bear was an animal of particular import to him, one he might observe and learn from, and that it would be on the order of a sin for him to kill one no matter what the expense, for there was something in bear that spoke to him of hope (352).

Nature has been there to comfort Inman and even entertain. Inman had been on a long journey and sometimes the only thing that would get him through would be nature. It helped him to look to the sky for answers and believe him and Ada might be looking at the same star. Nature is among the few things that helped Inman to keep up with his traveling and not quit and take the easy way out.

After all the good things to come out of nature it is hard to believe there would be any negative sides that effected Inman. Yet nature could be cruel at times when Inman was in need the most. Inman was almost done his journey when the snow started to fall making it very hard for Inman to follow the footsteps of Ada and Ruby.

“This time it was really snow in flakes like thistledown, falling slantwise so thick it made Inman dizzy with its movement. The tracks began fading off like twilight as the snow filled them. He walked fast, climbing to a ridge, and when the tracks started to disappear he broke into a run. He ran and ran downhill through dark hemlocks. He watched the tracks fill and their edges blur. No matter how fast he ran, the footprints disappeared before him until they were faint, like scars from old wounds (399)”

Even the critters of nature posed a problem to Inman.

“The sun climb beds the sky and turned hot, and all the insect world seemed to find Inman’s bodily fluids fascination. Striped mosquitoes hummed around his ears and bit his back through his shirts. Ticks dropped from trailside brush and attached themselves to him at hairline and pant waist and grew fat. Gnats sought out the water in his eyes. A horsefly follower him for a while, troubling his neck.” (72) well beyond her years