ISU ESSAY Crow Lake

Crow Lake – ISU Essay
Spencer Mason
Mrs. Dawson
English 4U: Rm 179
Thursday May 14th 2015

The novel Crow Lake by Mary Lawson is a fictional story about a zoology professor named Katie Morrison who teaches at the University of Toronto. The novel follows the emotional struggle and memories that Katie experiences as she prepares for a birthday get together with several people from her past. Her parents died in a car accident when she was very young and the novel portrays the grief and psychological impact this traumatic event has on Katie and her family. Katie’s brother Luke deals with the tragedy by giving up everything for his family, and this leaves him with little for himself, however he remains close with his family. Katie herself shuts others out in an attempt to cope, and this leaves her with a successful career however lacking in close relationships. And finally Matt directs all of his attention towards his education leaving him in need of a relationship. In the end Matt has to give up the future he worked for in order to maintain the relationship. The author explores the separate methods of coping with trauma and how each method of coping has a different impact on ones future.

In the novel, Luke is the older brother of Katie. When his parents are killed in a car accident with a logging truck, Luke gives up his own future and puts all of his effort into helping his family. We see this when he gives up his opportunity to go to teachers college in order to stay home and take care of the family. After disappearing for almost two days Luke finally returns home and says, “Basically, I’m not going to teachers’ college. I’m staying here. The four of us are staying here. I’m looking after you guys,” [73]. Luke goes on to explain how the money that was saved to send him to college plus the money he would earn from a part time job would be used to sustain the family. This is the first evidence of Luke’s transformation after the death of his parents. Prior to the accident Katie recalled that Luke showed no interest in his family whatsoever. ”Apart from the occasional row or bit of bantering between him and Matt, I don’t recall Luke ever showing that he knew - or cared - that the rest of us existed”[64]. From this evidence we can see that Luke has gone from being uninterested in his family, to giving up everything for them. Being the oldest Luke most likely felt it was his responsibility to raise the family. It was likely this selfless act that allowed him to feel some relief from the trauma he was feeling at the time.

Luke’s decisions when he is younger have an apparent impact on his life in the future. Through his sacrifice, Luke remains close with his family, however lacks an intimate relationship. When Katie and her boyfriend Daniel are in the car they are talking about this. “When he found out what he was going to have to give up, he gave it up. As Sally McLean found out.”[246] Katie and Daniel are talking about the relationship that Luke could have potentially had with Sally McLean however he chose his family instead. Shortly after that conversation we learn that Luke is thirty eight years old and still without a partner. Although not having a partner, Luke does get to stay close with his family as they all live in the same house together many years later. Luke’s method of shutting himself out in order to care for others resulted in him having a close connection with his family however he had to sacrifice a relationship and a career of his own.

Katie’s method of coping with trauma was quite the opposite of Luke’s. We see contrast in Katie’s emotions before and after the accident. Before the incident she is positive and optimistic about her future, however afterwards she struggles with the emotions resulting from trauma and shuts others out of her life. Early in the novel Katie is explaining the countless hours her and her brother would spend at the ponds during their childhood, and how little worries she had. It is here she says, “Tomorrow is forever and years pass in no time at all,” [5], emphasizing her innocence and happiness in her childhood. However after her parents have passed there is much contrast in regards to her thinking. She now explains interactions with others as being exhausting and difficult. Katie remembers Matt returning from the fields and thinking, “He wanted me to ask him what they’d been doing. I knew that, but the words seemed to be so far down inside me that I couldn’t drag them out,” [62]. After the accident Katie doesn’t engage with others as a result of the trauma she is feeling. She is shutting out external experiences because of her own internal struggle. Later on in the chapter Katie explains this struggle “I tried to still the whirlwind inside me, but when I succeeded, when by force of will I managed to calm it so that the individual thoughts could be settle and looked at, the thoughts themselves overwhelmed me.”[66] The emotions that Katie is feeling about the situation she is put in makes it very difficult for her to communicate with others. Katie is coping with the death of her parents by shutting out external experiences which inevitably leads her to a life directed around herself rather than others.

Katie’s method of coping with trauma by shutting others out leaves her in a position where she succeeds in aspects of her own life, however struggles with personal relationships. While attaining her career of choice and receiving a good education Katie is unable to connect well with others. Katie and Daniel are having a conversation about their relationship when Daniel tries to explain his frustration with her. “There seems to be something [...] some barrier. Something in the way. as if your only letting a small part of yourself…”[89] In the book Daniel trails off mid-sentence however it is clear that he was well aware that Katie has a hard time sharing things with him and he doesn’t know why. Later in the novel Katie also explains how her relationship with her family has diminished due to her avoiding them. In order to get the education and career she desired, Katie had to move far away from her family and hardly ever get to see them. When looking at Katie’s method of shutting others out, she has the greatest personal accomplishments out of her siblings, however her relationships are lacking due to her withdrawn personality.

While his sister attempted to shut others out, and his brother sacrificed his life for the family, Matt coped with trauma by directing all of his attention towards his education. When Katie is reflecting on her past she says “In the background, always, there was Matt with his books. All through April and May while the rest of the household careered around him in its normal fashion, there was Matt, sitting at the kitchen table, scribbling away.”[224]. Matt was able to ignore the chaos around him by completely investing himself in his education. Matt, like Katie was attempting to make a better future for himself, however contrary to Katie’s actions, Matt did not shut others out. Instead we see that he was able to pretend that everything was fine so that others wouldn’t worry. Matt and Katie are at the ponds when Katie realizes this. “He smiled at me, but when I looked at his eyes there was no laughter there. I saw suddenly that there was no happiness in him now. No real happiness; just a show for my sake.”[48] From this we can see that Matt is hiding his emotions so that his family will not worry. Matt’s method of coping with trauma was different than his brother and sisters because he was able to devote his energy to his education, and hide all of his emotions.

By hiding all of his emotions, Matt unconsciously found himself in need of a connection, a connection that he found with Marie Pye. When Katie is reflecting on her past, she thinks about Matt and how he was affected by the death of their parents. “I wonder now, If Matt was hit harder by our parents’ death than any of us. Everyone assumed that I was the one most affected, but I wonder if that was so. I had Matt to turn to. He had nobody.”[102] This quote helps to explain the struggle that Matt was really going through, even though he was hiding it. By not allowing himself to express his emotions, Matt searched for somebody that he could share a connection with, and that person was Marie Pye. Katie explains the connection that Marie and Matt shared when she says, “As for Marie … I see now that he may also have found comfort in those brief meetings with Marie,” [103]. Marie Pye and Matt were both emotionally damaged in their own way and it was through this similarity that they were able to form a relationship. The result of this relationship however was an early pregnancy that forced Matt to make the decision to either leave Marie and go to school, or move in with her and their child. Without much contemplation they got married and moved in together while Matt had to abandon his future in education. Matt had spent all of his time investing himself in his education, only to lose it because he needed a way to let out his emotions. In order to deal with trauma of losing his parents, Matt hid his emotions from others. However by doing this he found himself in need of a connection that cost him the future he had worked for.

In conclusion, Crow Lake written by Mary Lawson is a novel that explores different methods of coping with trauma and how each method is directly related to a character’s situation later in life. In the novel the characters Luke and Katie cope by either shutting themselves out, or shutting others out respectively. Matt however was able to ignore the problems around him by devoting himself to his education. Luke’s method of coping resulted in his close relationship with his family, but also a lack of partner or career. Katie finds herself in a successful career, as well as a relationship, however her connection with those close to her is limited. And finally Matt’s internalization of emotions left him in need of an intimate relationship that cost him the future he worked so hard for.