Henri Peace Character Analysis

In spite of my conviction that he was probably incorrigible, I was intrigued by Corwin’s unusual treatment of the instrument. I could not help thinking of his ancestors, the Peace brothers, Henri and Lafayette. Perhaps there was a dormant talent. And perhaps as they had saved my grandfather, I was meant to rescue their descendant. These sorts of complications are simply part of tribal justice. I decided to take advantage of my prerogative to use tribally based traditions in sentencing and to set precedent. First, I cleared my decision with Shamengwa. Then I sentenced Corwin to apprentice himself […] He would either learn to play the violin, or he would do time. In truth, I didn’t know who was being punished, the boy or the old man. But now at least, from the house we began to hear the violin.

That fiddle had searched long for Corwin. I had no doubt. For what stuck in my mind, what woke me in the middle of the night, after the fact of reading it, was the date on the letter. 1888 was the year. But the violin spoke to Shamengwa and called him out onto the lake in a dream almost twenty years later.

“How about that?” I said to Geraldine. “Can you explain such a thing?”

She looked at me steadily.

“We know nothing” is what she said.

I was to marry her. […] I do my work. I do my best to make the small decisions well, and I try not to hunger for the great things, for the deeper explanations. For I am sentenced to keep watch over this small patch of earth, to judge its miseries and tell its stories. That’s who I am. Mii’sago iw.

In spite of my conviction that he was probably incorrigible, I was intrigued by Corwin’s unusual treatment of the instrument. I could not help thinking of his ancestors, the Peace brothers, Henri and Lafayette. Perhaps there was a dormant talent. And perhaps as they had saved my grandfather, I was meant to rescue their descendant. These sorts of complications are simply part of tribal justice. I decided to take advantage of my prerogative to use tribally based traditions in sentencing and to set precedent. First, I cleared my decision with Shamengwa. Then I sentenced Corwin to apprentice himself […] He would either learn to play the violin, or he would do time. In truth, I didn’t know who was being punished, the boy or the old man. But now at least, from the house we began to hear the violin.

That fiddle had searched long for Corwin. I had no doubt. For what stuck in my mind, what woke me in the middle of the night, after the fact of reading it, was the date on the letter. 1888 was the year. But the violin spoke to Shamengwa and called him out onto the lake in a dream almost twenty years later.

“How about that?” I said to Geraldine. “Can you explain such a thing?”

She looked at me steadily.

“We know nothing” is what she said.

I was to marry her. […] I do my work. I do my best to make the small decisions well, and I try not to hunger for the great things, for the deeper explanations. For I am sentenced to keep watch over this small patch of earth, to judge its miseries and tell its stories. That’s who I am. Mii’sago iw.