Yup Ya You Are Cool Bye Fag

What role does love play in the character of Waguli, Junaluska, and Oconeechee?

Name: Xiomara Rivero
Subject: English
Grade: 10th
Date: October 29th, 2012
Word Count: 1,071
In Mountain Windsong: A Novel of the Trail of Tears, by Robert J. Conley, love plays a very important role in the lives of Junaluska, Waguli, and most importantly Oconeechee.
The first character that you see loveplays in important role in is Junaluska and his love for his deceased wife Qualla. “…they were very much in love with each other, Junaluska and Qualla….sometimes it seems like a man and a woman are just meant for each other. They belong together….that’s how it was for Junaluska and Qualla. They were just the right people for each other.” (Conley 9-10) His love for her is basically what kept himalive throughout all of Oconeechee’s life because he promised he wouldn’t kill himself when she died in order to raise their one and only daughter even though he missed her so bad it hurt him and didn’t stop thinking about her for one minute. Then his love for Qualla is also what led to his death after Oconeechee had finally found another man to take care of her. Living for the sake of raising hisand Qualla’s only child because he loved Qualla too much to let her down and disappoint her, and peacefully dying after reassuring himself, Oconeechee, and Qualla that Oconeechee is “…taken care of now….She’ll be alright now.’” (Conley 68) Love greatly influenced the life of Junaluska in a way that affected his life and death in major ways.
The person love seems to play the biggest role on isdefinitely Oconeechee. In the beginning she has no hope of ever finding her true love and she loves no one but her father. “The thought of a man, any man, intruding her isolation…disgusted her….she knew, if she persisted in her obstinacy, someone would try to force her.…‘I will kill him.’” (Conley 15) It seems almost as if she resents love and has no intentions of ever feeling that emotion. After sherealizes she may be falling in love with Waguli her perspective of love changes drastically. “So you don’t think your strange man likes you?’ said Junaluska to his daughter….Oconeechee’s back stiffened, and she stretched herself as tall as she could. ‘He will,’ she said.” (Conley 67) In that quote it shows her confidence and her determination to get Waguli to like her because she loves him. WhenJunaluska explains that Waguli wants to marry her she obviously becomes very excited as if she almost can’t believe it, knowing what her father has told her but continuously asking ‘what’ simply to reassure herself she is not simply dreaming and hear it again. Then she “…fought off an urge to talk back to her father…” (Conley 67) clearly feeling joy and wanting to comment about the situation.
Themain reason that drove her to later go on a quest to find Waguli was also love. Being overwhelmed at the fact that she has finally found her true match, she was so in love with him and felt that she needed to be with him that she didn’t care if they imprisoned her with him, as long as they ended up together. She spent years trying to find Waguli, never giving up always hopeful and having apositive attitude that she would once again be reunited with him. “It was hard for Oconeechee to concentrate….Her heart was not there with her….It was with Waguli --- somewhere.” (Conley 167) If she did not find him then she believed there was no point in living, having already lost the only other person in the world she had ever loved, her father Junaluska. “I have to try to find him, Wildcat. I lovehim. Without him, I have no reasons to live.” (Conley 107)
Another person love has a big role on is Waguli, also known as Whippoorwill. At first it influences him in a somewhat negative way when he is informed that Oconeechee is a Wolf Person which seems to kind of bring him down in a way as loving her would be incest. “Waguli’s heart sank. A Wolf. Waguli was a Wolf. To touch this beautiful...