English 201
Discussion #4
February 2, 2013
All the Living: C. E. Morgan
I think the pattern that I began to see as I was reading was the fact that everyone wanted love. Orren lost his Emma and Cash in a car accident and he has been on his own since then and once he met Aloma he thought he was in love he was searching for the family he lost and with Aloma he got just that. Aloma was the closest thing to family that Orren had. On the other hand Aloma is also in search of love growing up in the boarding school she didn’t have much family. When she met Orren he was her first love and like most girls she was blinded by her first love. She dropped everything to go be with Orren. I always say you never know someone to live with them. Orren and Aloma saw the best and worst of each other. Aloma was very selfish and always wanted things to go her way; she didn’t understand Orren had to take care of the farm to make a living for them. At times Orren would talk to Aloma like she was his child, if I was Aloma I would want to get away from the house if I was being treated like her. With going away and going to the church she met Bell and she then found out that Bell had feelings for her. After time passed she started having feelings toward Bell. Aloma didn’t know what she wanted to do she just wanted to be happy but she was misleading Bell and being unfaithful because she didn’t tell Orren about her and Bell’s feelings toward each other. What I liked about All the Living is that Morgan shows us love that is both simple and complicated at the same time. In the end, it’s not the cracking thunderstorm that signals the turning point in Orren and Aloma’s relationship, nor Aloma buying new chickens with the money she made at church, nor the birth of a calf, but Orren’s simple declaration that he needs her help in the field, and Aloma comes to realization that she wants to help him because she understands he is doing this so they can have a better family.
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