Touching Spirit Bear

Boys and girls running outside in the school playground from two kids fighting. One kid getting his head smashed into the ground. In the novel Touching Spirit Bear Cole Matthews goes through numerous life changing events. I know that a number of the themes are loss, courage and bravery. The story shows the themes when he goes to the island in Alaska for a year of isolation. The author demonstrates in the book to readers that people who don’t fit in with society need to fit in with society.

Although themes are fun to talk about I want to discuss how those themes are in the novel. The reason that I know loss is a theme of the book is because Cole lost his childhood because his father drank and beat him. Since Cole’s father beat him while he was drinking he couldn’t have a normal childhood because his life went downhill after his father beat him. When his father beat Cole his mother didn’t want his father to beat her as well because he was drinking. One possible reason that Cole’s dad beat him was because his dad’s parent beat his dad like how his dad beat him. Kids who are abused by their parents either have a bad childhood or they miss out on their childhood.

Even though loss is one them don’t forget about the other themes are even more interesting. I know that courage and bravery is a theme because after he get mauled by the spirit bear he could have just gone to court but he went back to the island. Since he went back to the island he still had all of his problems like his right arm being weak and he had a harder time to walk. He had to be alone for one year with him being weaker then everything else.  People who have damages to their body it is hard to recover and make limbs strong they were before.

While the theme of courage and bravery is interesting on the other hand loss can still be explained more. Cole lost some of his childhood because when his father started beating him he felt like nobody else is better than him. After that he started to beat kids up and get in trouble all the time, it got so bad to the point where he pounded peter's skull into the pavement. The police were thinking about sending Cole to an adult court because he has been getting in so much trouble and this put it over the edge.  The reason he did this is because he lost his childhood because his father beat him but his mom didn't do anything about it. 

Although Touching Spirit Bear is a story that demonstrates if you don’t fit in with society you better try better to fit in. The themes kind of describe what the author trying to demonstrate. Its better if you fit in society and if you don’t you won’t live a good life.