Kyle's Essay

Kyle Sebastian
Professor H. Salsich
English 02
12 November 2008

Simple Magic;
An Essay on the Imagery in “The Way to Rainy Mountain.”

TS: There are always those few things in life that catch us off guard, leave us speechless. SD: The images that I get from Mr. Momaday’s descriptions is one of those things. CM: The way he seems to relate everything to something else like “great green and yellow grasshoppers are everywhere in the tall grass popping up like corn to sting the flesh” (Momaday 313) simply gives me great pleasure. CM: I think I like it so much because I could never make such a simple, beautiful connection, and we often envy what we can’t do or have.

TS: There are the strikingly beautiful examples of imagery in his story of his grandmother, but three, like sirens, whispered my name, sang out to me, beckoned for me to notice them.(3 Action Sentence) SD: The first was the quote about the grasshoppers I have already mentioned. CM: Suddenly these grasshoppers didn’t seem normal to me, I had willed them to be so much more in my mind. CM: Now they were these (2 FAST Words) gargantuan behemoths that seemed to poke their heads out of a forest of grass. SD: The second quote was on the same page not too far away, the sentence just before. CM: “At a distance in July or August the steaming foliage seems almost to writhe in fire.” (Momaday 313) CM: I imagined I was there, laying on the ground next to the leaves watching the dance of clear smoke rise off of them. SD: The third and final quote that called my name was found on page 315 describing the look of “Yellowstone”. CM: “The skyline at all directions close at hand the high wall of the woods and deep cleavages of shade” (Momaday 315) CM: Just before mentioning this Momaday spoke of the sense of confinement in Yellowstone and somehow I agreed with him. CM: The high wall of the woods reminded me of a birdcage, and unmovable object in a path, something you can’t climb over or move around and something that no one would dare enter for one reason or another. CS: Maybe I could just be looking too far into this story, but that’s what I love about it these quotes simply hold my interest and set my imagination free.

TS: I believe in a lot of things Love, Faith, Hope, but one of the most important is Magic. SD: It comforts to think of our world as a magical place that holds many wonders and miracles. CM: Some of these simple passages that Momaday has used are more powerful beacons of magic to me than anyone can imagine. CM: They represent the very essence of the simplicity of beauty and wonder that so many people walk past without even sparing a second look.