Butcher's Crossing

“All the discomforts of his journey now seeped outward from his bones, brought to consciousness by his knowledge of the journey’s end.”

The somatic imagery shows Andrews’s psychological state before the journey. His discomfort reflects heightened self-awareness as he anticipates his destination and endures strain. Structurally, the line signals a threshold, shifting from passive travel to purpose, and thematically connects to Disillusionment and Loss of Idealism, foreshadowing that the physical and emotional costs will challenge Andrews’s expectations. Initially, the novel doesn’t portray the frontier as demanding.

“What he sought was the source and preserver of his world, a world which seemed to turn ever in fear away from its source, rather than search it out, as the prairie grass around him sent down its fibered roots into the rich dark dampness, the Wildness.”

Natural imagery conveys Andrews’s early idealism about the frontier. Inspired by the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, he compares human life to prairie grass to depict nature as a spiritual source. The contrast between nature’s instinctive connection and humanity’s tendency to turn away from its source highlights Andrews’s belief that civilization has estranged itself from essential truths. This moment captures Andrews’s pure expectations before experience complicates them. The language elevates wilderness as a moral and philosophical ideal, which the rest of the novel gradually undermines.

“The sight of the whisky had calmed Charley Hoge; he took the glass in his hand and drank rapidly, his head thrown back and his Adam’s apple running like a small animal beneath the gray fur of his bearded throat.”

This description relies on vivid simile and animal imagery, which Williams uses throughout the novel, to underscore Charley Hoge’s dependence on alcohol. The comparison of his Adam’s apple to “a small animal” reduces him to instinctive, bodily motion, as his need for alcohol governs him more than reason or faith can.