When Gunnar first enters Hillside, he finds himself desperately trying to fit in and find a place in the community. He resorts to being everything except for himself and really ends up getting nowhere at all with it. It's not until he settles down in school and meets Nicholas that he begins to let his true colors fly. He establishes himself as a fantastic poet and a natural-born basketball player, and everything about his character form then on out feels very organic. He is quickly accepted into the Hillside community and turned into a huge star.
By the time that college recruiters take note of him and his tremendous skills, Gunnar no longer cares about impressing anybody at all like he did before. He's become so used to obtaining respect through nothing other than being himself and doing exactly what he wants purely for the sake of doing it that he no longer cares in the slightest about what others think of him. Gunnar knows that he has exactly what they all want.
Gunnar is very conscious of the dynamic at play and he uses it to very strongly assert the fact that he is an individual who is defined by more than just his exceptional set of skills.
I agree that he realizes that he has the freedom to do whatever because he understands that everyone else respects him and wants to get to know him, and there is a sense that Gunnar himself doesn't want to be stuck in this situation where he is defined purely as a star basketball player, or as an exceptional poet, but rather he wants to be defined and known as a person. He doesn't want to be treated as a star, and kind of be forced to live up to everyone's expectations of him as a poet or a basketball player. I think it is interesting that he seems to genuinely enjoy basketball, and even more so poetry, until it results in unwanted attention.
ReplyDeleteI feel like this dynamic very well describes the way Gunnar never just settles for things. He doesn't just accept his spot outside of society and works to change that. He doesn't settle for just being the star that Hillside expects. He works to be defined on his own terms. There are very many scenes through out the book where Gunnar shows this aspect of him self, and it is a very integral part of Gunnar's character in this book. His lack of acceptance for the way things are is what drives him to become the stand out in society that will even propel his fame over that of others there.
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