The Rifle - Jack Kemp

The Rifle

Gary Paulsen

Paulsen, Gary. The rifle. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1995. Print.

The Rifle is a book that centres on a gun made by legendary gun maker Cornish McManus. This gun passes through the Revolutionary War in the hand of John Byam. The gun then sits in an attic for a century before falling into the hands of Tim Harrow. Tim takes it for a while, before trading it with Harvey Kline for a free repair and an Elvis painting. The gun is then hung over his fireplace where its final surprise takes place.

The rifle is a book that passes through the ages, from America before the war against the British, to the modern day Macdonald eating America. In this book, the story starts in 1768, a little bit west of Philadelphia. We can compare Philadelphia in 1768 to Philadelphia today. Firstly, you never see a horse-and-cart today, unless you are at a carnival. In 1768, the horse-and-cart was the primary mode of transport. As well as that, Philadelphia was a poor city, where living conditions were tolerable, but only just, that was until Benjamin Franklin helped organise public services, and he also helped to make Philadelphia a port city. This helped it grow into the urban jungle of chrome and steel buildings that makes up the city located in Pennsylvania. Back in the eighteenth century, weapons were still developing at an extraordinarily slow pace, making both hunting and fighter very hard for those who tried. Back then, you had two options, a smooth-ball gun, which actually had a curved trajectory, or a primitive rifle, which would take you ages to reload. Compare that to the hug range of snipers, pistols, bazookas and the like that we have today. Now this all changed when a person named Cornish McManus a small shop for making and repairing guns.

Cornish McManus was relatively new to the gun-making scene, and had only been an apprentice until now. McManus was an artist, and a perfectionist, and he knew that every single gun he made had to be absolutely perfect. Now this was not possible as the materials that were given to him were absolutely rubbish. However, one afternoon, among a pile of old wood, he found a piece of striped Maplewood, shaped perfectly for a stock. From there he created the most accurate, and powerful weapon of the 1700, and the gun that the book revolves around. Now McManus was obviously affected by the time in which he lived in. This is mainly because he is a gunsmith, and gunsmiths do not exist anymore. Therefore, if Cornish McManus had lived today, he probably be a poor man. The historic setting affects the plot of the book as well. The first example of this is on page 30, where John Byam, another character, wants to buy the rifle. He offers a years’ worth of cured hides, a packhorse and his old rifle. No money involved whatsoever! That would rarely happen today, especially since the horse no longer considered a real mode of transport anymore. Many characters come and go throughout the book, though the main characters are Cornish McManus, John Byam, Tim Harrow, Harvey Kline and Richard Mesington. Cornish MacManus is a man who is always working on something, and is kind, although he is attached to things to easily. John Byam is a man who lived throughout the revolutionary war, and fought in it, taking out British sergeants daily. He too seems kind, eager and he is always willing to try something new. He is also an action-packed man, living through times of war. The gun passes through three generation sitting in John Byam’s family attic, until one day, a man finds it and sells it to an antiques collector for $35. That antiques collector sold the gun for $200 the next day to a man named Tim Harrow. Tim Harrow is a huge gun collector, and buys the rifle for two hundred dollars. He is sly and cheats, he the type of person that I could not bear. A greasy (not literally) man, who loves his guns too much. The person who he sell the gun to however is quite the opposite: Harvey Kline. Harvey Kline is moustached, and the father of Richard. Harvey, called Harv by his friends, is well liked, he sounds confident, and is caring to all those around him. He often disregards himself, a very nice person. Those traits follow on in his son Richard. Richard is a well-liked boy, even though he and his family have just moved, he is kind to everyone, his parents are not allowing him to have a girlfriend, and that is causing conflict between him and his parents. Gary Paulsen uses many characterisation techniques in this book, including action, dialogue and reaction. Action is used on all characters, in all parts of the book. This is especially during the part of the book where John Byam owns the rifle. John is everywhere, shooting down British soldiers, avoiding gunpowder balls (to use the word bullet is incorrect), and running all over the place. This describes him as an action-packed man, who is always eager to do anything. Dialogue is also used multiple times to shape the characters, like when Tim Harrow talks to himself about taxes, “Jesus would not want us to pay taxes, except for the old.” (p.55) and in-between the lines he says that he wants to stop welfare completely, and make it every man for himself. I think that this proves the type of person he is, we can also see this when he says to Harv, “It’s a fact. I’ve had it for years, passed down in my family.” (p.63) which was a lie, a lie told just to get Harv to fix Tim’s car. Reaction is also used, like when John Byam reacts to shooting the deadly accurate rifle. This book is told in an Objective point of view, meaning that the reader has no access to the interior thoughts of the character. However, in my opinion I think that Gary Paulsen’s characterization techniques are so good, that they portray the thoughts and feelings of the characters. This point of view can help develop the main characters by not revealing all the characters’ traits at once, making the book an interesting read throughout the entire book. I think that there are multiple themes in this book, and differing themes in different sections of the book. Some of the themes are change versus tradition, war and love. This book contains the theme change versus tradition at the very beginning of the book. Cornish McManus changes the traditional technology and style of a conventional rifle, to make it one of a kind. War is also in this book, because the majority of the book is set in rebellious America, when Americans finally decided to make a stand. Love is in the book at the very end, with Kline and his family. The first reason for this is that Richard wants a girlfriend, and the book goes into detail about that. As well as that, the Kline family is an extraordinarily close-knit family, and they obviously love each other. Family could also be considered a theme, but a minor one.

This book was a very good one, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I liked it because it had a fast and constantly moving plot that always kept me intrigued. I also liked the book because of its interesting and relatable characters; I can easily relate to Richard. However, it was the ending that really surprised me; it ended with a bang… I would definitely recommend this book to a friend, especially if you enjoy reading about old guns, how they work, and American history. This book is important to think about because it is important to know about things like this. It is also important because we have to know what ordinary people’s live were like back then, because then we can compare their live to ours; it really makes me feel lucky to have the life that I have. I learnt five new vocab words while reading this book, they were:

1.      Fundamentalist n. A form of a religion, especially Islam or Protestant Christianity that upholds belief in the strict, literal interpretation of scripture.

2.      Granular adj. Grainy, small.

3.      Backhoe n. An excavator.

4.      Ramrod n. A rod for pushing down gunpowder down the muzzle of a gun.

5.       Carcinogens n. A substance that causes cancer, especially in the stomache.