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Denora Guevara

Professor Benjamin Bac Sierra

English 1B

10 September 2021

Life Lessons in Literature

With billions of people in the world and thousands of lessons to learn, literature serves as

a guide to help understand the present world around us as well as the past world that quickly

scurries past us. It personally took me a long while to understand the true importance of

literature, as a young kid just seeing it as another extra class that I was mandated to take. It

wasn't until one of my high school English teachers inspired me to stop just reading words off a

paper to get a good grade but rather understand why those words were chosen and what deeper

meanings they hold. With every essay I write and every new book I read, I continue to

understand why literature is such an important aspect of today's culture. It allows us to

communicate with each other in ways that phone calls or texts can't, in ways that youtube videos

or movies can't. Through literature, we're able to be alone with our thoughts and the thoughts of

authors who have had experiences similar to ours or experiences that we might go through in the

near future. The short story A Tree, a Rock, a Cloud is a perfect piece of writing that represents

the many ways literature works to teach us life lessons, help heal our wounds and recognize that

you are not the only person who may be going through a specific crisis. In the kind of society we

currently live in, many feel out of place and alone making it more important now than ever that

people start understanding the impact that literature can have.

In this short story, there are three main characters that stick out to the reader and partially

represent the real world as symbols of typical human manners. The old man in A Tree, a Rock, a
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Cloud is a person created by descriptions and stereotypes, the type of person you can easily find

in a bar setting, as well as the person that society usually walks by and labels as ‘crazy’. It wasn't

until he had a young, innocent child appear in that atmosphere of drunk men, that he was able to

tell his story seriously and hopefully leave an impact on that child. “Cautiously, out of the corner

of his eye, the paper boy questioned the men along the counter to see what he should do. But

they had gone back to their beer or their breakfast and did not notice him,” this shows that

nobody paid attention to the old man and ignored him with the child, which in reality would

spark problems in the bar as it’s an old man telling a young boy he loves him. This creates an

overall gloomy tone for the reader as even the paperboy admits that usually while drinking his

coffee people will start friendly conversations with him but for some reason that day nobody

wanted to talk. The gloomy atmosphere is supported by the last main character, Leo, the bitter

cafe owner. Throughout the short story, Leo continuously criticizes the old man and quite

literally laughs in his face when he is trying to tell the young child a serious story. The simplicity

of these characters works well in creating a general sense of how humans genuinely interact with

one another. In the real world, the old man is always made fun of and never believed by people

like Leo, who get on with their life by putting others down and not opening up their mind to all

the possibilities the world can provide. All this while the young, innocent child takes in both

sides of the story and tries to figure out who to believe, as this is the point in their life where

everything is modeled after something. This piece of writing also does well in representing

literature as the old man’s story that unfortunately many do not take into consideration or even

listen to, although there can be formidable life lessons.

Through this piece of literature, I learned that love can be overbearing to many, and by

learning to love simple things before loving something or someone with your whole body, you
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can have a chance at perfecting the art of love in everything you do. The old man speaks

honestly of his experience of love and marriage, “I met her at a filling station and we were

married within three days. And you know what it was like? I just can’t tell you. All I had ever

felt was gathered together around this woman. Nothing lay around loose in me any more but was

finished up by her,” describing how he fell for this woman with his whole body in just three

days, the first time he had ever experienced anything like that. In the time period that this story

was written, it is not out of the ordinary for someone to marry a person they had just recently

meant and so that is why it is usually not questioned. This is one of the reasons the old man is

telling him this story, to let the boy know that he doesn’t have to do what everyone else is doing

just to fit in. But rather take your time and learn to love things in different ways before the big

love comes around. At first I contemplated the deeper meaning behind this story, wondering if it

was actually possible to love inanimate objects, such as a rock. I soon realized that I was taking

the old man's words too literal, just as the young child and Leo did. It's not solely about giving

your love to something but rather understanding how to love something that does not do

anything for you. As humans, we're accustomed to believing that love is a two way street, but the

heartbreaking reality is that many times one can love the other more, or one just doesn't love the

other at all. This was something the old man in the story learned the hard way and that is why he

told the paperboy his story, so that he could have a chance at getting love right. All in all, after

long periods of traveling the world, disengaged from the remainder of the world, the old man had

acknowledged his own philosophy on love, which was that men should begin by cherishing

something like a tree, that you can't anticipate anything consequently from, instead of beginning

cherishing a lady whom you anticipate something consequently from. At the start it may seem

impossible to do this, but that's a part of the long lesson to learning how to have a healthy
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relationship with love. These are the types of lessons that literature teaches us and gifts us with,

acting as the world's diary which we all have access to, but we just don't know how to use.

The author, Carson McCullers, does well in allowing the structure of the story to flow

from start to finish, but also reveals a fact at the end of the story that makes the reader rethink

everything they just read. “Was he drunk?” “No,” said Leo shortly. The boy raised his clear voice

higher. “Then was he a dope fiend?” “No.” The boy looked up at Leo, and his flat little face was

desperate, his voice urgent and shrill. “Was he crazy? Do you think he was a lunatic?”Leo was

unable to keep answering the pestering questions because he knew that that old man had been

sane in his mind and if he told the boy that, in Leo’s mind it could’ve done more harm for the

boy than good. Once again, supporting the idea that many are behind in life as well as life

lessons because they have yet to allow their mind and body to accept literature as something that

heals and teaches us to understand concepts and people. This jaw-dropping fact at the end is

another tool that literature uses to teach tough lessons or concepts that may seem unfathomable

to many; for the boy, he was confused by much of what the old man said but was certain that he

was ‘crazy’ or on something, soon to find out that was false, leaving him to ponder what was

true.

Literature continues to serve as a guide for readers around the world to learn from past

mistakes or concepts that could potentially help them in their own future. A Tree, a Rock, a

Cloud is an ideal piece that addresses the numerous ways writing attempts to show us life

examples, assist with recuperating our mental and physical injuries and perceive that you are by

all accounts not the only individual who might be going through a particular situation. As every

new piece of literature is created and introduced, the opportunity to learn and heal from writing

is limitless.