Cold Mountain
...rtram’s Travels helps sustain him through his trek. Those reasons and the dramatic remembrances of the atrocious war experiences that Inman has while in the hospital make up his mind to leave and begin his journey to his home under the protection of nightfall. Inman’s journey is one of risks and rewards. He had to be constantly alert and careful. “The dogs and the threat of Home Guard out prowling and the gloom of the cloudy nights made for nervous wayfaring” (71). Wrong decisions, such as simply helping a person almost lead to his demise at more than one time. One risk Inman took is later in the book when he was traveling with Veasey and came across a man trying to move a bull that was a blocking a stream. Inman’s creativity leads to their success and the man, named Junior, promptly invites them to his house. Inman and Veasey believe that this is a good-natured invitation, but it is in fact the lure that Junior uses to get paid for their capture by the Home Guard (205-222). Inman’s expedition was filled with risks and danger, but he also had experiences that brought him closer to Ada. The fact that Inman had dedicated his journey to finding Ada, he felt closer to her the closer he got and his anticipation of finally reaching her eventually became unbearable. One incident along Inman’s journey that made him more in love with her was when he came upon the young girl named Sara who lived alone with her baby. At one point when they are in bed together, Sara touches the wound on his neck. “A woman had not touched a hand to him with any degree of tenderness in so long” (310). It is obvious that he is thinking of Ada and the last time they touched during that Christmas party. The immense length of Inman’s odyssey brings him closer to Ada because he spends a great deal of time thinking of her and because of the events that he encounters and Ada’s struggle with her property and herself help her grow as a person. It is apparent that Ada’ education has sheltered her and made her become ignorant of the environment and the ways things work around her. She does not know how to do any work on the farm because of her absence of experience. Ada also shies away from romantic involvement because the two men, besides Inman, who wanted to marry her did not live up to her perfection expectations. In her place, other women would jump at the opportunity to marry. Perhaps she feels this way because she often buries herself in books, specifically romantic novels, which may tend to enforce on there being a perfect man for her. Ada’s growth is in large due to Ruby’s arrival. Ruby offers to work with Ada to get the farm as productive as they can in exchange for merely food and shelter. This starting agreement soon turns into a sharing and change of personalities. Ada like Ruby in the sense that she becomes more in unison with nature and run a productive farm. Ruby becomes more like Ada because she listens to the stories that Ada reads, they both make their hair, and socialize. Ruby has never acted as a woman of the time “should” act so the changes that she experiences can be thought of as bringing her into the civilized world. Ada’s alteration takes her more out of the fictional world of her books an into the real world where she has to cope with manual labor and her emotional feelings, specifically her love towards Inman. Inman and Ada’s story toge...