Stone boy
Stone boyCreative Task: The Stone Boy
Six years ago, Arnold Curwing accidentally shot his brother with a .22 caliber rifle. He was nine years old at the time. Surrounding this incident, as you would expect, he was under fire by his neighbors and peers from thereon, even though it was an accident. Generally, they all blamed him. Some detested him for not getting in trouble. Some might debate that he got not enough punishment. Others might conclude that the knowledge of living the rest of his life knowing that he killed his brother would be punishment enough. The people that he loved, the people he was closest to blamed him, including his mother and sister blamed him. This is the kind of thing that a person nine years of age does not forget. For this reason I make the following analysis.
When he was young, Arnold seemed like a child with no education, except for the knowledge that had been passed down the family –like the need to pick peas before the sun comes up, while they are still cool – pieces of information like this would be all that he needs to get by when (we assume) he inherits the farm from his father. So he would not be very bright by today’s standards. Naivety would be a characteristic you would expect from him as well – it seems that in his community, mostly everybody would accept what is given to them and not question it. Uncle Andy for instance immediately believed the sheriffs verdict, be it correct or not, and is later quoted to have said, “He’s a reasonable fellow… …that’s what the sheriff said…” Everybody (when they were having a discussion in their living room) shared the same subjective view.
Arnold would be quiet, but still not keeping to his pact of never asking anybody for anything ever again. First off in the story he appeared just a bit talkative. After the incident took place, he did not talk unless it was absolutely necessary. Perhaps this is because of shock, and maybe Arnold felt he did not want to be heard. I would imagine that he would be much like this for the rest of his life. I think that no matter how much people apologize to him, he will still subconsciously feel like everybody blames him for what he has done.
So he would be living at the farm doing much the same thing that he had been doing for the past six years after Eugene died. Doing as he is told by his parents, and not getting in...
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