The Rifle
Gary Paulsen
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.
