Our Own Destiny
A Northern Light is all about decision making and believing in yourself to chose the right option for yourself. If there is an opportunity to make a better life for oneself, should they take the opportunity and leave their friends and family behind? There is a chance that Mattie Gokey can get away from her family and everyone that has done her wrong in past years and get a proper education. She has to find out if leaving them or staying to help her family would be the best choice.
Mattie Gokey is a sixteen year old woman that lives in the northern New York in 1906. Mattie’s mother died early in her life and she was left with her father, brother and three sisters. Soon after her mother’s death, her brother ran away after getting…show more content… Youre too interested in what Blueberry Finn and Oliver Dickinson and all the rest of them made-up people are doing to see what’s going on right around you.” (330) Mattie finding out about Royal’s plan to take her farmland, it became easier for her to make her decision to make a better life for herself. Her school teacher was interested in helping her get into college so she would write letters to the college often trying to help her get in.
During the last while of the book, Mattie decides that it is important to herself and to her mother (which she promised she would get a proper education to) to get a college level education. She begins working at a hotel and later has saved enough money to get a train ticket and to pay for college. She even had enough money to leave for her family and friends. She left a note for her father, Weaver (her best friend)’s mother and Royal. Then she leaves to college and never looks back.
A Northern Light really shows the meaning of coming of age and making your own destiny. Mattie shows that making a path for yourself isn’t a bad thing and that it shows character. There are a number of ways that Mattie could’ve left, she could have left nothing for her family and friends or she could’ve left long before she got the money to and went for it. She could have not left at all, but she left in the best way possible and made sure that everyone around her knew she was going to be okay and even made sure that they were