Sunrise is the time to feel that you will be able to find out how to help somebody close to you who you think needs help even if he doesn’t think so. At sunrise everything is luminous but not clear.”
Norman wants to help his brother out because of what happened the other night and what the jailer told him but he doesn’t know how to address it and he feels the best time to do it is in the morning.
Quote of Setting
Even though Paul must have had three or four fish by now, I took my time walking down the trail, trying with each step to leave the world behind. Something within fishermen tries to make fishing into a world perfect and apart. I don’t know what it is or where, because sometimes it is in my arms and sometimes in my throat and sometimes nowhere in particular except somewhere deep. Many of us would probably be better fishermen if we did not spend so much time watching and waiting for the world to be better.
This quote represents the setting because it shows where the world was perfect for Norman and Paul and it shows where they feel at home. They feel at home while they’re fishing because as they were growing up they were taught how to fly fish and respect the fish and the water. Fly fishing had been a big part of their life and a family tradition. So it was already in their blood and that’s why it really gives them a feeling of place which is the setting.
Metaphor Quote
I suppose he took my rod so I wouldn’t think that the cast into the bushes could be done only by his rod. It was in this way that I came to know that my rod can be made to cast into bushes, but the truth is I have never mastered the cast, probably because I still flinch from the prospect of losing flies that I don’t have to pay for.
I had no choice now but to cast into the willows if I wanted to know why fish were jumping in the water all around me except in this hole, and I still wanted to know, because it is not fly fishing if you are not looking for answers to questions.
I think that Norman is using this quote to say If you aren’t willing to take risks like casting into the bushes even if you might lose your fly, then you aren’t living up to your potential like Paul and the way he fly fishes. He is trying to say that in order for you to reach your goals you must be willing to take risks.
Essence/True Meaning of the Setting Quote
As the heat mirages on the river in front of me danced with and through each other, I could feel patterns from m own life joining with them. It was here, while waiting for my brother, that I started this story, although, of course, at the time I did not know that stories of life are often more like rivers than books. But I knew a story had begun, perhaps long ago near the sound of water. And I sensed that ahead I would meet something that would never erode so there would be a sharp turn, deep circles, a deposit, and quietness.
The fisherman even has a phrase to describe what he does when he studies the pattern of a river. He says he is “reading the water,” and perhaps to tell his stories he has to do much the same thing. Then one of his biggest problems is to decide where and at what time of day life lies ready to be taken as a joke. And to guess whether it is going to be a little or a big joke.
For all of us, though, it is much easier to read the waters of tragedy (63-64)
What Norman is saying is capturing the meaning of family for me in this novel. His family is like the river because his family goes through rough patches like him and his wife or Paul and going to jail, and then it goes through the calm stages like when the three women express their love for him, or when Paul takes him fishing. After all that happens, everything comes together like when all the rivers diverge into one.