Thursday, July 9, 2009

Things That I Need to Say

In The Back of the North Wind, North Wind(being compared with someone in the Bible) is most like God, for she has the greatest understanding of the world, just like God.



"How kind you are, North Wind!"
"I am only just. All kindness is but justice. We owe it."



The North Wind describes that she is not kind, but she is just, meaning that if you are kind, you are only being just, but if you are being just, you are being merciful and all sorts of being kind.
The North Wind and Diamond also have a confusing conversation about what kind of 'me' she is. North Wind is the first speaker.



"Why am I good to you?"
"I don't know."
"Have you ever done anything for me?"
"No."
"Then I must be good to you because I choose to be good to you."
"Yes."
"Why should I choose?"
"Because-because-because you like."
"Why should I like to be good to you?"
"I don't know, except it be because it's good to be good to me."
"That's just it; I am good to you because I like to be good."
"Then why shouldn't you be good to other people as well as to me?"
"That's just what I don't know. Why shouldn't I?"
"I don't know either. Then why shouldn't you?"
"Because I am."
"There it is again," said Diamond. "I don't see that you are. It looks
quite the other thing."


And then a little later in the chapter, she says this: (It is Diamond speaking first.)


"Who blew the wind that made me brave?"
"I did."
"I didn't see you."
"Therefore you can believe me."

Here, North Wind tells Diamond that he does not need to see everything to believe it.
In Hebrews 11:1, they tell us the same thing.


'Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not
seen.'
Hebrews 11:1

Diamond, the little boy who is the main character of the book, has a drastically different perspective of life than anyone else in the rest of the book, except for perhaps North Wind. Ever since he had been to the back of the North Wind, he had been endowed with wisdom beyond his years. He also has a greater understanding to life. After his mother had read parts of a poem to Diamond, she stopped suddenly, and he replied like this:


Here Diamond became aware that his mother had stopped reading.
"Why don't
you go on, mother dear?" he asked.
"It's such nonsence!" said his mother. "I
believe it would go on for ever."
"That's just what it did," said Diamond.
"What did," she asked.
"Why, the river. That's almost the very tune that
it used to sing."

When he said that 'the very tune it used to sing,' he was referring to the river in the back of the North Wind.
In the chapter, 'The Seaside,' Diamond and his mother have an in depth conversation. They talked about how they were going to live through without much more to eat. They use birds as an example.


"O you little bird! You have no more sense than a sparrow that picks what it
wants, and never thinks of the winter and the frost and the snow."
"Ah-yes-I
see. But the birds get through the winter, don't they?"
"Some of them fall
dead on the ground."
"They must die sometime. They wouldn't like to be birds
always. Would you, mother?"

I think Diamond has a more realistic view in life. He knows that everything must die, not just during the winter when even the birds might not have enough to eat.

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