Perspectives of ”Horses of the Night” by Margaret Lawrence

During our days of lives we live through the cycle of perspectives. The significance of an individual’s perspective changes by influences from people around and the change of age. We would create fantasy worlds in which they live when life does not seem to go their way. In order to escape from reality is sometimes necessary as it enables ones creativity to grow and dreams to go on, but when a person escapes too much from reality they may start to lose track of their lives and collapse and break down at the end. From two different perspectives of characters, the author Margaret Lawrence displays her views in the story “Horses of the Night”. We are influenced by the things people do around you and how we learn from them then perspective will be made by the experiences and the choices we will be making.

Depending on how we look at things our perspective can influence us in a good or bad way. There is a possibility in one point of everyone’s life there will be that one person that will influence them the most and will have a big impact on their lives. The first time when Vanessa first met Chris, she found it hard to communicate cause of the age difference but after she got closer to him she understand more of him and beginning to learn from him, “I got this theory, see, that anybody can do anything at all… set their minds to it.” Page 290. Admiring Chris’ knowledge, Chris explains how a person can achieve anything they want as long as they focus on that one thing they really need and keep going forward to their goals.

Vanessa then realizes that as long as she look up for a good life nothing will stop her from going forward so she accepts it to her thoughts and was greatly impact by Chris. Grandfather never really liked Chris and always saying negative things about his father. “Wilf wasn’t much good, even as a young man,”, “If the boy takes after his father, it’s a poor lookout for him,” Grandfather saying that Chris’s father was not a good influenced by his father because he was not a good man back then. Chris’s fall down was caused by the negative impact from his father leading him to a wrong path. It is saying that one person who is a bad influence can turn your life around where perspectives will change guiding you to a wrong path.

From a younger to older age, view of changes will usually impact one’s perspective. “It was only when I was curled up…with Chris only three feet away…… I would be a woman” Page 297. Emotionally and deeply about certain issues, your feelings changes as you grow up. Vanessa feels attracted and feels the closeness of her and Chris and wonders if Chris feels the same. “He was twenty one. The distance between us was still too great. For years I had wanted to be older so I might talk with him, but now I felt unready”. Vanessa is able to feel the change when she is young and now she wants to feel older to just to talk to Chris at this type of language and not feel the difference between them.

One person’s dream can cause great change to their perspectives. Chris’s dream was to become a traveler, along the way he wanted to learn the ways of a salesman where he would earn some money as well. “But a guy could work at it for a year or so and save right?” Page 295. Chris had thought of traveling but he did not see it coming for him to also spend most of the money to become a traveler and for a living. Sometimes one person’s dream can cause them to hide themselves from reality. This will cause them to only believe in themselves and continue on what they think they can do not knowing they’re on the wrong path. Later on Chris joins the army just hoping to continue on to his traveling not knowing his perception is wrong. People generally hope for better things in the future, but nothing ever goes exactly as planned. The only thing Chris has that keeps him going is this dream of better life, but when he cannot reach his dream, he becomes insane into a break down. People do not generally go insane from not achieving their goal, but they are often disappointed when dreams are set too high to reach.

Perspectives are what mostly change us to face reality in life rather it helps us or breaks us down. Too often people get caught up in the drama of their own lives, which feels to them like the only thing that matters in the world. Sometimes we let our personal problems overwhelm us and weaken us. So many things influence us that we ourselves sometimes just have to figure out at what point they can help us in order to succeed. Different influences on Vanessa and Chris made them ended up quite differently than one another. Change also affects the characters decisions, where one grew up and then they find mistakes and will eventually correct them.

While the other one started with the mistakes, and carries it on with that path and ended up with a total break down. Usually people closest to you are the ones that influence you the most and have the greatest impacts in our lives to while they grow up and learn from them. In Vanessa’s case she sees Chris life and compares to hers after and learning the mistakes she should not have followed, she then realizes that life is only one tiny part of an entire humanity that puts things into perspective. These are things every person experiences. After you step off the wrong path you will realize that you will have the new strength to face the experiences and challenges that makes up life in order to go on and look forward for a better future.