The Clearing

The Clearing

Have you ever known a person that you didn’t like at all? Such as someone who you didn’t interact with other than in an argument? In the story The Clearing by Jesse Stuart is a great example of how something good can come from something bad.

Have you ever had a prolonged argument with someone? It is harder if you are friends with the person because you just want the thing to blow over so you can just be friends. But on the other hand, if you don’t like the person then you might not really care about the dispute. One example of an argument is in WWII. The U.S. had issues with Germany and Japan. We declared war on Japan after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and, on Germany because of the things that Adolf Hitler was doing to the Jewish people. That is an argument that affected a lot of people. In The Clearing the neighbors had an argument that was on for so long that the people didn’t know each other’s names.

While some arguments like wars can be violent, some could be very short and painless. If you have an argument with a friend then most of the time you know that in a while you will both be friends again so the argument is over quickly. Like in the book Tunnels by Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams the two characters, Will and Chester, are arguing over whose fault it is that they are captured and being tortured while they are underground. It was a very quick struggle with no winner.

Although some arguments may be very minor, every quarrel hopefully has a resolution sooner rather than later. In the story, the main conflict is resolved by one of the neighbors helping the other neighbor out, and then the neighbors who were helped before help the other neighbors out when something threatens both of their homes. Similar to the end of WWII when we ended the conflicts with those who we were fighting. We bombed Japan and, Germany surrendered during battle. Both of these things resolved the conflicts.

Examples of how good things can come from bad things are found in The Clearing. War and other stories, are similar to The Clearing in different ways.