The word diagnosis means to identify the nature and cause of anything.
People use diagnosis many different ways with different variations in the use of logic and experience to figure out cause and effect relationships. The word diagnosis does not always have to consist of medical terms. In Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain, the characters have some sort of knowledge about life and their surrounding environment (Way). All of the main characters face some kind of problem or obstacle that they must overcome, and they all have a cause and effect relationship.The character of Inman reveals a conflict between his moral perspective and the awful realities of his own life.
Inman’s task is to overcome all obstacles thrown at him (Breslin). The book tells his story of homecoming (Gardner). At first, Inman has a wounded neck and psychological scars of his memories of the war. All he can think about is Ada and the ghosts of dead and gone soldiers.
Putting his wounds and scars aside, Inman remains a respectable hero (Piacentino). Throughout the story, Inman lets his conscience lead his actions.He wills himself to resort to violence when necessary, even though he stays troubled by the deaths he has witnessed and does not want to add to them. He remains ready to fight any battle, whether it be physical or moral. He comes off as aggressive because he wants to protect all of the innocent people, including himself.
Not only does he have a geographical journey, but he has a conceptual journey, also. Charles Frazier makes Inman’s journey have a deep meaning. This suggests that his journey reflects a more insightful exertion.As a part of his spiritual awakening, Inman has flashbacks of past events. Two things keep him going: thoughts of Ada and memories of home (Gardner). Throughout his journey, he ends up losing faith in himself.
However, his faith in another world remains strong. Frazier suggests that the goat-woman and Sara encourage Inman’s determination. “Inman's journey is, among other things, a record of his coming to terms with God. From its very first step, his journey is one of faith, a faith that he has lost in the war and is on the road to recovering throughout the story” (Gibson).He ends up conserving his humanity even though the intense psychological strain gets hard to handle.
This is because he believes in a better life far away. Frazier shows that his true salvation from the now strange and delusional world can only be conquered through death. Throughout the story, the character of Ada becomes more independent. She does not know how to function in the real world, because her education has isolated her from learning the important things. Because she is used to reading book after book, she stays away from idealistic participation.
By the end of the story, Ada has gone through both happiness and hurt. She has adjusted to a life of hands on work, living by the patterns of the natural world. She learns to find herself in the world by believing in her instinct and by observing the silent signs of nature. Ada’s new life makes her have a greater encounter with the realistic and expressive difficulties of life.
When Ada becomes reunited with Inman, it shows her new directness. She overcomes her feeling of alienation by confronting her doubts and expectations of the future. Ada admits to Ruby that she fears a lonely future.However, the simple structure around Cold Mountain proposes her refuge from feeling sidelined and weird.
Cold Mountain provides a homeland thst she can share with Inman. After Inman’s death, Ruby’s family and Ada’s daughter continue to give Ada a source of emotional comfort. “Frazier is far more interested in exploring Inman's and Ada's emotional and spiritual efforts to conquer their fear, self-despair, loneliness” (Paul and McCarron). Obviously, even though Ada believes she is alone, she is not. Charles Frazier shows great change in this female character as she finds comfort living close to nature.
The peaceful confidence of Ada’s internal routine shows her comfort with the natural world’s rotations and recurrences. Ruby becomes a role model and a best friend for Ada. As an independent, everyday woman with strong perception, Ruby assists as a foil for the beautiful, academic Ada. Ruby’s knowledge about the natural world teaches Ada to look away from herself, and to cooperate with the environment.
Ruby personalizes many of the story’s themes about living close to nature and having a close relationship with Cold Mountain. However, Ruby’s role becomes more significant as Ada develops.As Ada develops into a strong friend and co-worker, the women’s friendship becomes sisterly and insightful. As Ada learns about real-world life from Ruby, Ruby also learns from Ada.
She listens to the literature the older woman reads and follows her lead when it comes to showing emotion. Stubbornly hard headed and independent, Ruby begins to let go of past abandonment towards her father, and regains her faith in love. Ruby’s development within the story, even though it is not as intense as Inman’s or Ada’s, it is extensive and reflective.Ruby changes from a girl into a mother figure. The novel shows her change from someone who could function outside of society alone to a woman who is thankful to have her whole family living and working beside her. She becomes a figure who keeps her husband and father in line without being too bossy.
Ruby becomes the tie that binds her family together. “Frazier blends the story of Inman's journey with that of Ada's efforts, with the help of a drifter named Ruby, to wring a subsistence living from the neglected land; in the background are the yelping dogs of war” (Carrol).As a preacher who Inman reveals for trying to murder his pregnant mistress, Veasey joins back together with Inman on his journey, proving to be an accidentally dangerous, though funny, traveling friend. As he uses religion to justify his sinful acts, Veasey symbolizes both the hypocrisy of false faith and unrestricted selfishness. As a woman who lives privately in the mountains and raises goats, who Inman meets on his journey, the goat-woman has a strong connection to the natural world, healing Inman’s wounds with the help of food and medicine.
Frazier uses her character to emphasize the advantages and the disadvantages of an isolated life. Inman thinks about these through the course of his journey. Although the goat-woman finds her solace in nature, Inman realizes that she has sacrificed a deeper human relationship to do this. Ada has a dead father and former preacher of Cold Mountain by the name of Monroe. Monroe moves in with his Ada to Black Cove to speed up his recovery from loneliness.
His wife dies giving birth Ada. As a nice man and exceptional preacher, Monroe sees in reflection that he has been overly protective of his daughter.Ruby’s father’s name is Stobrod Thewes. Even with his drunk and disgraceful past, he partially restores himself through music. He pleasures in writing and performing his fiddle music. As an outcast living in a cave on Cold Mountain, Stobrod goes to his daughter for help in escaping the Home Guard.
Even when down on his luck, Stobrod always succeeds to pull through, as seen by his close call with death at the hands of Teague’s men. Stobrod’s friend and fellow outlier, Pangle characterizes a simple-minded boy. Pangle has a talent for playing the banjo and teams up with Stobrod to form a musical duo.His death stands as a demonstration to man’s heartlessness in times of war and to wasted human life. Teague characterizes the leader of the Home Guard, a local group who rounds up all the war deserters. He is a sneaky sadist who is mentioned by both Ada’s neighbors and the captive with panic and repulsion.
He represents the supposed authority of the army whose wrongdoings are defensible in the name of war. His murder of Pangle and other war deserters in the book foreshadows Inman’s death. Birch characterizes Teague’s younger assistant who murders Inman.Although Birch persuades Teague to bring the war deserter into town instead of hanging him right then and there, the reader does not sympathize with him.
He seems desensitized by all of the violence he has had to witness with his white hair and cold, glassy eyes. Sara portrays a young eighteen-year-old widow girl who offers Inman food and a place to sleep. Inman feels like he has to help her when Federal soldiers steal her pig, which happens to be the only thing she and her baby have to live on. Her husband dies in combat, and she characterizes the spirit of many people in the book whose lives were destroyed by the war.The Georgia Boy seems like a shy young boy who befriends Stobrod and Pangle to found a group of war deserters at Shining Rocks. He avoids getting killed by the Home Guard because he hides in a bush.
He ends up later, marrying Ruby Thewes. All of the characters in Cold Mountain impact their own lives and the lives of others in some way. Sometimes, critics describe the book as a spiritual quest for redemption (Chang, Oswald Yuan Chin). They all go through many obstacles and challenges. They have problems, and the problems always end up solved in some way, even if it does mean by death.
Something causes the problems, and then an effect occurs.
