The Fragrance of Sweet-grass by Epperly Elizabeth R;

Author:Epperly, Elizabeth R; [Epperly, Rollins Elizabeth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: LIT003000, LIT004080, LIT004290, SOC028000, SOC032000
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Published: 2014-04-14T16:00:00+00:00

Rilla knows that she will always ‘keep faith’ with Walter and shape her world so that his sacrifice will not have been in vain, and she begins anew by making a supreme sacrifice of her own – she lets Una Meredith keep Walter’s letter, knowing that Una has nothing else of his and suspecting Una’s wordless love for him. The letter itself is Montgomery’s message about the war – all Walter’s fierce determination and faith are echoes from Montgomery’s journal entries. Perhaps in making Walter the hero, Sir Galahad, who is willing to be sacrificed for a noble idea, Montgomery was able to make some sense of her own immediate grief over Frede Campbell as well as to find a central figure whose worthiness makes him symbolic of the thousands like him who lay ‘in Flanders fields.’

Montgomery is careful throughout the novel to emphasize the bond between Rilla and Walter. We identify Walter (as we did his mother, the young Anne Shirley) with beauty, and especially with the loveliness of the glen and Rainbow Valley. Most of the nature descriptions in the novel are of Rainbow Valley, and most of the passages are given as though through the eyes of Rilla. But Walter is always there, too. The first nature description of the novel is given through Walter’s eyes just after Jem has been reminding Walter of his old vision of the Piper:

How beautiful the old Glen was, in its August ripeness, with its chain of bowery old homesteads, tilled meadows and quiet gardens. The western sky was like a great golden pearl. Far down the harbour was frosted with a dawning moonlight. The air was full of exquisite sounds – sleepy robin whistles, wonderful, mournful, soft murmurs of wind in the twilit trees, rustle of aspen poplars talking in silvery whispers and shaking their dainty, heart-shaped leaves, lilting young laughter from the windows of rooms where the girls were making ready for the dance. The world was steeped in maddening loveliness of sound and colour. He would think only of these things and of the deep, subtle joy they gave him. (20–1)

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