A Bolt of White Cloth

                    “ Love Lies With The White Cloth”

                                     By: Blayne Jasper

            Thought the story “A Bolt of White Cloth” the author Leon Rooke tries to illustrate in the story that the white cloth is suppose to represent love.  Leon Rooke gets to the point by making the white cloth and love the main part in this story. He does a great deal of work showing how love matters and whoever decides they what a piece of cloth then they will have to show him how they can prove that they symbolize and show the meaning of love.

            As the author tells the story he also gives off some character archetypes at witch describe the character. In the story the Traveler could be considered a person that is a greasy and homeless, who is very fit and strong from walking in the hot sun for a long period of time. “ His shoes had big holes in them and you could see the blisters on the soles of his feet, but he had an air of exhilaration now. His hair fell down over his eyes and he shoved the dark locks back.” (Pg. 54) Another character in he story is the wife, and her personality in the story could be considered funny. “ My wife is a real joker, who likes nothing better than pulling a persons leg.” (Pg.51) Even though the wife is a bight of a jokester she could also be called a very hard working and old-fashioned person who likes to et her work done. “ She put his washtub of clothes in my hands, and went back to hanging wet pieces on the line.” (Pg. 52) When the story comes closer to the end I start to realize that the husband is telling the majority of the story by what he is looking at. The husband is a very pleasant person and loves everything about his wife, and how she likes to play jokes and tell good stories. After all the events he simply enjoys everything about his wife and the type of person she is. “ Funny thing was, hearing her say it, I felt the same way. It, them, that, those- they were all beautiful. I couldn’t deny it was love I was feeling.” (Pg. 53)  He really shows how love is and how loving someone can make the relationship a wonderful thing to have.

Throughout the story the author tends to use some extraordinary situations that happen with the characters. “The ordinary kind,” he said. “Your ordinary kind of love will buy this cloth.” (Pg.52) The author is starting to describe what the whole story is based upon. For this quotation he was acting out the traveler and begins to tell exactly what the traveler does. Soon after the wife tells the traveler all about love, and how she pretty much loves just about everything she could possibly love. “Practically everything! There isn’t any of it I’ve hated, and not much I’ve been indifferent to. Including cats. So put that in your pipe and smoke it.” (Pg. 53)  After those two quotations the author is trying to prove, and show you, that love doesn’t just have to be love for one another, but it can also be as simple as enjoying your house or anything that brings out the goodness and pleasure in yourself. Later on in the story the traveler begins to unroll the white cloth out onto the grass. The traveler said that the wife may have as much as she pleased. “ Hold up a minute,” the wife said. “ I don’t want to get greedy. I don’t want you rolling off more then we can afford.” (Pg.55).

“You can afford it,” the traveler said. (Pg. 55) What the author is trying to demonstrate with this situation is that love has no price tag, love can never be bought and it can be an endless amount.

 “A Bolt of White Cloth” also has some colorful symbolism in the story. Witch the author uses from time to time. “It was as if some giant dark bird had fluttered between us and the sun.” (Pg. 55) The author uses this colorful symbolism almost to create an image in your head; witch can be lead to more depth of thought throughout the story. “ Looks like a long white road, don’t it.” (Pg. 56) Once again the author creates imagery in your head, and for this symbolism he is trying to describe how long of piece of cloth is and how much the Traveler is rolling out on the grass.  He is trying to make the reader picture a long white road in order to give an image of what the cloth looks like on the grass.

In the end I think Leon Rooke did a very good job with this story. All thought out the story he managed to create a lot of detail and gives hints to why the title of the story is the way it is. The white cloth is suppose to represent love, because white is the color of purity, and when people get married the brides dress is always white and people get married, because they love each other. In that sense I think that white was the most suitable color for this story, because white can represent love in so many ways. White is clear and is clean and also has a very healthy look.

                                               Self Reflection

In this essay I was faced with some strengths and some weaknesses. Some of the challenges I faced with this essay was finding the right quotations that will give the right meaning to the readers. I handeld this challenge by collecting quotes as we went through this assignment.