Beyond The Bridge

Bridge to Terabithia is beyond imagination, courage, loyalty and friendship, it goes on to life. Sometimes life brings you the beauty sometimes the deceiving parts. When Katherine had focused on Jess's dreams of becoming an artist, I knew it was an important aspect of the book. Deciding to search further, I saw the importance in it right away.
When Jess had come up to his father, with a full smile, with so much happiness and pride, so much sureness that his father would approve of his love of art, I could feel how terribly he was crushed when his father had said:
"What are they teaching in that damn school?" 
And then again when he had said:
"Bunch of old ladies turning my only son into some kind of a-"
You could tell right away, how important Jess was to his father- how much his father needed him. But when Katherine had emphasized how this could ridicule his family. Jess's feelings had probably been crushed as well, how his father disapproved of him becoming an artist, and many kids all over the world may be able to relate to this in many different ways.
Me, for instance can relate to it in a way that differs from Jess's but is quite similar. I dreamed of becoming a writer, for as long as I could remember, and reading the book had been my third grade teacher's clever way  for me to gain the imagination that was folded and hidden inside of me. When I had brought in a piece of writing that I was so proud of to my family, exclaiming that I wanted to be a writer, my mom told me that writing was a hobby, not a real job, and it couldn't earn me enough money to survive. I had been crushed but decided my mother was doing it for my own good.
Jess's reaction was probably different, he could've been sad, mad, enraged. There could be so many different types of reactions and feelings. But for me, I would say that if a child was allowed to pursue his or her dreams, they would succeed in life. But Jess's father didn't understand this, because the truth was his dad needed him. If it weren't for him taking over their farm next, they wouldn't have enough money to feed themselves and run the family, so the importance runs down onto Jess, who is the only boy in the family and is being pressured of what he is supposed to be doing.
If I were Jess's father, I'd tell him to pursue his dreams along with working on the farm, so that Jess isn't pressured as much and is allowed to do what he wants along with what his duty is.
When Jess was going to run in the morning, and he was doing it so secretive, it made me wonder, did he not want his parents to know he was going to run? Why not, it seems like a normal thing to do. That's when I realized that his dad knew he ran, but didn't know that he ran in the morning. What I noticed when Jess was waking up to run was that Katherine had emphasized on the fact that his father was already awake and getting the old tractor rolling. What does this mean about the dad? This probably meant he was a hard worker, and probably supported his family in any way. An excellent example of a dad, but the missing piece is: he needs to let Jess be more free of his decisions.

"If a child pursues his dream, he'll succeed in a way that is unimaginable."