As I began to read Peace Like a River by Leif Enger, I noticed several different motifs throughout the story. In many instances water is mentioned, not only in liquid form but in gas and solid forms as well. Breathing, dreams, and miracles are also a few motifs that Enger uses to convey meaning in his story. What I would like to focus on is the motif that I feel is overlooked. There is a strong bird motif in this story and I believe they represent much, even help the reader understand the story to the fullest.
Throughout this book Enger use a particular species of bird, the crow. The moment that struck me the most in the book was, when the crow is spotted in the middle of the highway. Swede sees something in the middle of the road and asks Jeremiah, her father, what is ahead. Jeremiah replies saying, “Can’t tell” (Enger, 133) in turn Swede continues to gaze farther down the road. Jeremiah, Swede, and Reuben begin to think that the object in the middle of the road is just a bag of trash, but as they approach the object closer they notice that it is a dead crow. The importance in all of this is the description and characteristic of the crow. The narrator describes the crow, “struck by a car it lay all mashed to the road but for one free wing, which rose and fell by the gusts…a dead crow lying in the road out in the heart of no place, and just before we reached it the wind brought up that wing again so it looked like a thing asking for mercy” (Enger, 133). The way Enger described such a simple detail in the story gives the reader reason or idea to look more into why this road kill was described so well and with so much detail.
Reading this book I could not help but reflect back to this page in understanding the rest of the story. I feel that Enger’s description of the crow is foreshadowing future events that happen in the book. The narrator, Reuben, goes on informing the reader what dad says about the dead crow, “All the years I spent in North Dakota, that’s the first crow I ever saw hit on the road…they’re awfully smart birds, they get out of the way” (Enger,133). After reading the whole novel I can now see that this alluded to much later in the story. The crow is a type of bird and birds symbolize freedom.
I took this idea of freedom a little further and began to see Davy as a free bird. When Davy’s dad says that crows are awfully smart birds and that they usually get out of the way, it began to make me question. Davy is a smart young man but did he make a wrong decision by shooting those two boys? Did he not get away this time morally like the crow did not get away from being hit by a car? The interesting thing is that the crow, dead, looked to have been reaching up into the heavens with its wing lifted asking for mercy. One wrong move and the crow was dead, he suffered the consequences of a wrong action, mercy was not given to him. Davy made a wrong move. Davy plotted and killed two boys. Davy has broken out of jail and is on the run. He must suffer the consequences of a wrong action and mercy will not be given to him.
Later in the story we come to learn that Davy is never caught and continues to live his life running and hiding from the law. The consequence he faces is shame and guilt. His consequences are lack of freedom to live a normal life. That crow symbolized Davy and the fact that one wrong move can make or break us.
Works Cited
Enger, Lief. Peace Like a River. New York : Grove Press, 2001.
Reading this book I could not help but reflect back to this page in understanding the rest of the story. I feel that Enger’s description of the crow is foreshadowing future events that happen in the book. The narrator, Reuben, goes on informing the reader what dad says about the dead crow, “All the years I spent in North Dakota, that’s the first crow I ever saw hit on the road…they’re awfully smart birds, they get out of the way” (Enger,133). After reading the whole novel I can now see that this alluded to much later in the story. The crow is a type of bird and birds symbolize freedom.
I took this idea of freedom a little further and began to see Davy as a free bird. When Davy’s dad says that crows are awfully smart birds and that they usually get out of the way, it began to make me question. Davy is a smart young man but did he make a wrong decision by shooting those two boys? Did he not get away this time morally like the crow did not get away from being hit by a car? The interesting thing is that the crow, dead, looked to have been reaching up into the heavens with its wing lifted asking for mercy. One wrong move and the crow was dead, he suffered the consequences of a wrong action, mercy was not given to him. Davy made a wrong move. Davy plotted and killed two boys. Davy has broken out of jail and is on the run. He must suffer the consequences of a wrong action and mercy will not be given to him.
Later in the story we come to learn that Davy is never caught and continues to live his life running and hiding from the law. The consequence he faces is shame and guilt. His consequences are lack of freedom to live a normal life. That crow symbolized Davy and the fact that one wrong move can make or break us.
Works Cited
Enger, Lief. Peace Like a River. New York : Grove Press, 2001.
