Eagle Metaphor

"Material" is a story about a young man's search to find his inner self. Michael Byers, also the protagonist in the short story, writes a story filled with different accounts of a summer he spent on a fish processor barge in order to relate his struggle to overcome issues that have plagued him as a writer and as person in general. Foremost, Byers worked on the barge to make money for college. A second underlying reason that Byers works on the barge is to find material to ignite his writing. During the time he spends on the barge he grows as a writer, but more importantly as a man. His uncles, which help him find the job for the summer, are men that Byers looks upon with admiration, describing them as "massively, thrilling competent people" (2). He looks to them as models for what a man should be because he has not really had one in his own life. Byers lived with his mother, and he explains the reason he really needs the money is to avoid conflict when his parents meet in August to discuss Byers's financial needs for the upcoming college year. He despises the fact that his parents do not get along, so he is willing to spend a difficult summer working on a barge in Alaska in order to make enough money so that his parents do not have to argue who is going to pay tuition. The protagonist's most important problem he faces is the relationship with his parents and how he has always lacked the courage to break away from them. The idea of courage and the entire inner struggle that Byers faces is depicted utterly by a metaphor that he incorporates in the story "Material."

Towards the end of the story, a character named Denny comes out of the woods during a break they were granted once they reached Southeast Alaska with an American bald eagle in his arms. To everyone's astonishment, the eagle rested in his arms without fighting back until Denny finally let it go free once they reached the barge. The eagle did not belong in Denny's arms with submissive tolerance, just as Michael did not belong under his parent's threshold; the eagle and Michael should have fought back, taken a stance, particularly in Michael's case to develop himself as an individual. While at first it might appear that the eagle is being used merely to demonstrate a usually wild and haughty being in a confined state, a closer look reveals that it's most essential use is actually to validate the idea that it should, in reality, denounce its bearer. With the use of the captive eagle Byers manifests the story's focus, distinctively, that a man behooves courage and independence.

Throughout the story, Byers is in search for material to use as a writer, hence, the title of the short story is "Material." When he is reflecting about the events that occurred that summer many years later with his wife and colleagues, he realizes that he always had the material he needed, rather he just "lacked the courage to write about it" (5). Byers found it difficult to write about the subjects that really affected his life: his parents' relationship, his relationship with his parents, and his relationship with his siblings. The author recognized all of these aforementioned subjects as material that tormented him internally. Byers lacked the strength to take a stand and relinquish the hold that his parents had over him.

The essential struggle for the author was making his presence known when he was around his parents. In the story, Byers states that they "fought over, around and through me" (5). Byers never stood up or added to his parents dueling. He sat back, never saying a word. He never questioned his parents or attempted to add some sort of input to in the entire affair. The idea of courage goes back to Michael's uncle. He saw them as men who took on a tough man's job. He states in the story that he made mental notes while on the airplane ride to Alaska of the type of men that were aboard the airplane with him. They were men that had rough, manly build to them. From the beginning of the story one gets a sense that Michael is not one of these men. He makes it a point to point out that he was completely opposite of these men. The differences that Michael observed not only included the size and look of these men, rather it also included the personality types that these men had about them. They were not ordinary men, as an ordinary man does not work in the cold waters of Alaska in an extremely dangerous job such as Artic fishing. It takes a man with courage. The first step that Michael took to attain the courage that he talks about later in life was actually working on the barge that summer. His wife and friend could not even belief that he actually worked on the barge. When he told the story, his wife joked that she did not really believe that Michael Byers, the same lanky Michael Byers, had actually worked on a barge.

The eagle metaphor shows the process that Michael had to go through in order to fulfill his real quest that summer, not entirely his monetary needs, but the need to find courage to break away from his parents. The eagle sat in Denny's arms without fighting back. An eagle is an animal that is known to have a fierce and upfront personality. When one thinks of an eagle, they think of a free-flying bird that is on the