A Bolt Of White Cloth Analysis

Leon Rooke shares the quality of love in his short story, “A Bolt of White Cloth”. Rooke shows that love has the ability to produce the greatest happiness in the lives of people, but hardships must follow in order to achieve this love. Love comes in many forms as it is an emotion that can be expressed differently varying from person to person. Rooke uses magical realism by introducing an Eastern stranger that sells white cloth with magical qualities. The price, however, is love. This stranger is the bearer of happiness as he travels determining whether a person has expressed a great deal of love and hardship in exchange for his cloth. The characters discuss the types of love that exists in the world. The reader can easily submerse themselves

Leon Rooke uses magical realism to portray the Eastern man as a carrier of happiness. His bolt of white cloth also has magical characteristics. This is most clearly present in the unrolling of the bolt of white cloth when “the bolt did not seem to get any smaller.” The bolt symbolizing love, showed the idea that love is never ending because the bolt did not get any smaller even when he rolled off about fifty yards. To achieve this never ending love you must have an undeniable bond with this person. This gives the cloth the quality of love, if given time it’ll flourish into unending happiness. This magical element in “A Bolt of White Cloth” grabbed my interest. The passing traveler is an interesting character to come across. My first impression of him was not positive. I thought that he may have scammed this couple with this white cloth. This is just me being skeptical of strangers trying to offer me anything. In turn, the strange traveler bears no harm and is rather friendly when conversing with the couple. I find it fascinating that he has this supernatural power to determine a person’s expression of love by just trusting their words. The stranger is able to read the bond of the couple and thinks nothing less or more of it. I believe the writer tries to develop the idea to display that love is a magical thing and it needs to be treated that

This doesn’t mean that I’m not a loving person, but rather I think it’d be hard to come up with so many ways of expressing love. My experiences up until not could not amount to the same as the farmers have. Life is a great journey to explore and discover its many wonders. Encounters of love will cross any journey of life: it is inevitable. The stranger explains that “love might exist between close friends, between a man and his wife, or parents and children or for that matter the love a boy might have for his dog” (438). In whatever form it comes in, love will bring happiness with time. When time permits, I can see that it will eventually be possible for everyone to hypothetically buy the white