Cold Mountain, written by Charles Frazier, is a historical fiction novel written in 1977. Charles Frazier writes about the grand journey of a troubled Confederate soldier on his way to the Blue Ridge Mountains. However, Inman, the soldier, is not alone in his journey. Although separated by distance, Inman’s life long lover, Ada, is experiencing a mental journey while transitioning from an urban lifestyle to a now Blue Ridge Mountain girl. Cold Mountain has taken warfare, love, freedom, and self-knowledge to a whole new meaning when two lovers try to escape a somewhat ruined world.
According to Mike Childs from the NC Government and Heritage Library, Charles Frazier was born on November 4, 1950 in Asheville, North Carolina. Charles mainly grew up in a part of North Carolina called Andrews. Despite living in a small western town, “Frazier was able to get the name of his first novel near his grandparents house, Cold Mountain in Pisgah National Forest. Charles wrote Cold Mountain in 1977 with the book focusing on Inman and Ada” (Childs). The real Inman was based off of a story that Charles’ father told him.
Charles’ father told Frazier “a story six or seven years ago about an ancestor of [theirs], a great uncle, who was wounded in the Civil War and walked home” (“Cold”). Frazier did not have a lot of back ground on his great grand uncle so this allowed him to make a lot of the story up using what he knew about the Civil War and some imagination. When writing Cold Mountain, Frazier wanted “to create a sense of otherness, of another world, one that the reader doesn’t entirely know (“Biography”).
The story focuses a lot on isolation in the search for meaning and this can be seen through the characters that Frazier has mentioned. To many, “it was that anomaly in American fiction in general, a beautifully written, profoundly thoughtful, but widely read popular novel” (Inge). The anchor that Cold Mountain has on Ada is a small way Frazier beautifully depicts the never-changing presence. However, “still, outsider though she was, this place, the blue mountains, seemed to be holding her where she was.
From any direction she came at it, the only conclusion that left her any hope of self-content was this: what she could see around her was all that she could count on” (Frazier 32). The place that Ada was once raised has now vanished; the girl she was — now feels out of place. The basis of Cold Mountain and all the problems presented lead back to the American Civil War. On many occasions, it seems as if Inman is trying to walk away from the ongoing war (of course he is trying to get home). Inman discusses his experiences with the war and how much of a tole it has taken upon him mentally and physically.
Several fluctuating problems only arise because of the war. Ada, for instance, would not be in the unfamiliar farm situation she is in if it was not for the war. The most intriguing, yet true thing related to war that Inman said was, “What you have lost will not be returned to you. It will always be lost. You’re left with only your scars to mark the void. All you can choose to do is go on or not. But if you go on, it’s knowing you carry your scars with you” (Frazier 218). This quote shows just how much Inman has been effected.
This not relates to Inman, but to all of the men and women during this time period. Inman has had to learn to see past his undertakings and practically move on. Inman, “had grown so used to seeing death, walking among the dead, sleeping among them, numbering himself calmly as among the near-dead, that it seemed no longer dark and mysterious. He feared his heart had been touched by the fire so often he might never make a civilian again” (Frazier 118-119). The effects of the war has numbed Inman; Inman now questions if he will ever feel mercy or trepidation again.
Freedom to many just means having the ability or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without any hindrance or restraint. Maybe to a teenager, freedom means the power of selfdetermination attributed to the will; the quality of being independent of fate or necessity. Despite what ones definition of freedom is, Inman’s idea of freedom may be slightly different. For Inman, freedom could mean a lot of things: freedom from the war itself, freedom from the dread that the war brings, or even freedom to live out his life with family and loved ones.
As Inman begins to learn, “The road, they said, was a place apart, a country of its own ruled by no government but natural law, and its one characteristic was freedom” (Frazier 65). Despite the fact that Inman will never be able to be fully free from his war experiences, over time, he can gain a freedom that will assent him to live in revenge of them. The love shared between Inman and Ada is only growing stronger through the trials and tribulations that the war is putting them through; however, they are not the only relationship involving love that is going on.
Although not romantic, Ruby and Ada have a friendship that seems to be growing stronger and stronger each and every day; Monroe is shown as having a numerous amount of love for his daughter and wife. Meanwhile, Ada is trying to make herself feel the love she has for others, and Inman is trying to love someone else (Ada) to hopefully recover from the war and all that it has brought on him. Monroe said, “the months when we knew you were to come seemed a strange blessing for a pair such as we were: old and marred by the past. When Clair died in childbirth, I could not hardly think that God would be so short with us.
I could do little for weeks. Kind neighbors found a wet nurse for you and I took my bed. When I rose again, it was with the determination that my life was now at your service” (Frazier 102-103). Monroe’s words express just how deeply his love for his family goes. Inman” did not know what to say [to Ada), so he said what his dream in the gypsy camp had told him. I’ve been coming to you on a hard road and I’m not letting you go” (Frazier 209). Inman’s love for Ada has always been strong, but the experiences he has gone through has only made it deeper.
Homesickness is something that many people experience. When away from home, one may miss their parents, the comfort of their own bed, the home cooked food they are used to, or maybe even the feeling of knowing where everything is and how to do things. To become used to a new place, it needs to feel like home, especially for Ada. For instance, Ada needs to find the balance within her new farm that will give her the sense of being back home. Many have asked Ada,“[are] you not yet ready to return home? Sally asked. —Home?
Ada said, momentarily confused, for she had felt all summer that she had none” (Frazier 23). It will take quit some time for Ada to feel at home, especially without Inman by her side. Both Inman and Ada have taken a journey throughout the reading of Cold Mountain. Their journeys have consisted of finding themselves again after the Civil War has deprived them from what they have always known of themselves. The man worthy of Ada, good, and hardworking gentleman has been lost, but he has hope that during his journey to Cold Mountain he will find his old self once again.
As for Ada, “for most of the six years of their mission to the mountains, Monroe had employed a white man and his part-Cherokee wife to am the place, leaving Ada with little to do other than devise a weekly menu. She had therefore been free, as always, to occupy her time with reading and needlework, drawing and music” (Frazier 15). Now, Ada is left to find the “farm” girl in her while Inman is away. Ada is always used to having assistance and her talents of art, piano, politics, language, and literature are not in her favor.
Her talents will not aid in the fact that she now has inherited a house, land, barns, and chickens to take care of. Charles Frazier does an excellent job in turning real aspects of the Civil War into an extraordinary novel. Just like Ada, “In many families on both sides, women and children had to take on new roles during the war” (“Home”). Families not only had to say goodbye to their partners but their laborers as well. Women during this time not only had to fulfill their normal duties, but extend them beyond the household “into the fields, relaying orders” or merely alone (“Home”).
As hard as it was for Ada, other women during the Civil War felt the same way,””We felt like clinging to Walter and holding him back,” wrote one Virginia woman in reaction to a family member’s enlistment. “I was sick of war, sick of the butchery, [and] the anguish. ” No matter what, the absence of these men left a huge toll on the women left behind. As for the men, just like Inman, “Soldiers tried to sustain their role in family affairs through frequent letters home, but their correspondence proved an imperfect surrogate when the mail, disrupted by war, was slow in coming” (“Family’).
Inman and Ada had difficulties knowing what to say when reunited, and that was normal according to other families in the Civil War. Support from families and loved ones was given, but civilians did find it hard to reconnect again. Charles Frazier’s beautifully written novel has taken warfare to a much deeper perspective. The personal experiences described allow the reader inside to know exactly how the Civil War effected the lives of many. Cold Mountain has taken warfare, love, freedom, and self-knowledge to a whole new meaning when two lovers try to escape a somewhat ruined world.
