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Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier Essay example

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Cold Mountain

In Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain, the theme of music is one of the novel’s most powerful themes. From symbolizing character growth to the healing of physical wounds, music plays an integral part in this novel. While many critics will point out that music has little effect on the human psyche, Charles Frazier shows his belief that music does indeed have a profound effect on the human mind throughout Cold Mountain. Throughout the novel, Inman, Ada, Ruby, Stobrod, and many other characters experience music that allows them to keep faith against the odds or even heal their wounds! There are three major types of music used in this novel; hymn music, folk music, and “natural music”. It is through these types of music that …show more content…

But Monroe preached that they were misunderstanding the song if they fooled themselves into thinking all creation would someday love them. What it really required was for them to love all creation” (78). Monroe used the hymns of his church as a means to spread his ideas of how people ought to live their lives. This pattern is also apparent with Inman. When he meets Swimmer, a Native American, he learns of a chant that could “kill the soul of an enemy” (20). Inman cannot accept this notion because “he had been taught by sermon and hymn to hold as truth that the soul of man never dies” (20). Charles Frazier believed in the power of hymn to influence what people believed about spirituality and the soul. This parallels the historical usage of hymns in church during the Civil War as well as in today’s church as a means to pass down culture. Hymn music also had the ability to strengthen the Church and to solidify the beliefs of the parishioners. There is a large disagreement over the influence of religious music over a person’s beliefs. The evangelical song leaders believed that religious music moved people with no faith to a life dedicated to praising God, but people from outside the church described religious music as “cheap and tawdry” (Squire 242). According to the United Evangelical Front religious music was a way to articulate God’s plan and extend the influence of religion outside of the church

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