A Northern Light, Week 5-Post B

Right now in A Northern Light, I really have gotten into it. The book is really starting to get exciting, and lots of different things are happening. It seems to me, that there is way more than just the two plots (The Glenmore and back at home). The plots include, Mattie and Royal, Mattie and her Dad, the murder of Grace, and Mattie’s work towards college/New York.

As Mattie begins to like Royal more and more, I think she gets wrapped up in it, and is loosing her true self. For example Mattie almost turned down a job she would love, sorting books, which would also help her make enough for a train ticket to New York, but was hesitant because she was not sure what Royal would think. Before Mattie even got to know Royal, Mattie hated him because he questioned/teased her about her love for reading and writing. Also, Mattie basically said yes to marry Royal, even though she barely knows him. “[…] I wondered if he was supposed to have said her loved me when he told me about the ring. Or maybe that came later” (226). I think this quote shows you Mattie still has some, good sense, but is falling into everyone’s trap. Before Mattie didn’t care what anyone thought, but now she is giving up a dream for some boy, who doesn’t even seem to care that much about her.

One last thing I noticed when reading about Mattie and Lou in Miss Wilcox’s library was, “One was about Penelope, the wife of Ulysses, setting fire to her loom and heading off to do some traveling herself” (208). When Mattie mentioned this poem I thought it was kind of ironic since we had just finish The Odyssey, and poems about The Odyssey.