Chapter 4

Content:

When Jess comes back to the cottage, Dad and Grandpa have an argument because Dad wants that Grandpa takes a wheelchair to make his life easier and to reduce the worries about him in the family. The stubborn character of Grandpa doesn't want to accept that.
So the wheelchair stays without Grandpa and Dad and Mum go out for a walk. Grandpa and Jess stay at the cottage and Jess assists Grandpa while he draws his picture. They sit at the river and it comes out that the river is the river of the picture "River Boy". Grandpa draws in his usual way and Jess has to bring him those things he needs to go on.
After a while, Grandpa becomes mad with his picture, he really begins to dislike it. He thinks about to throw it away and to restart the picture. To Jess' fear Grandpa becomes bad and claps his and to his chest. Is it a second heart attack?

My thoughts while reading:

At the last pages of this chapter I was really kept by the rising tension. I asked myself a lot of questions and I really tried to answer myself. So I was really caught in speculations:

Will it really be a second heart attack?
- I think yes, there'll be that second attack. The tension of this point of the story is really high because everything that happens in this chapter works for a special event, maybe there's a climax of the whole novel. For me this attack will also bring a lot more difficulties in the everyday life of Grandpa. Perhaps it makes him actually sure that he ought to die.

What about the painting?
- I think that the setting of painting the picture is nearly combined with this second heart attack and actually the "dying" of Grandpa reveals that the painting is a certain aspect of importance in this story. For Grandpa it is indispensable to finish the picture "River Boy". To my mind it has a kind of auto-biography for him because his mysterious life (His parents died when their house burnt down near the river and after his childhood he lives in a big city. So why? And what's the reason for never saying anything about his past? Why is he completely abstinent to these things? And why does he never talk about his pictures?) is reflected in the painting of "River Boy"(A painting with a river, but without any boy).

Why does he dislike the picture in all of a sudden?
- That's a really mysterious question that I can't explain to my own. How can it be that a really practised painter like Grandpa doesn't know how to paint down the feelings, the emotion that he has had? No I don't know. However I think, I'm going to know why next time.

Where's the part of the river he draws?
- At my point of view the part of the river will be even a special part in his life. So I can imagine that there's a place where Grandpa met the "River Boy" or where he lived with his parents. I think this part of the story must be a really big highlight in his life. Because, why does he draw this part otherwise.