There are many instances in the novel where Tony's parents
comment on their different family backgrounds. One example comes toward the end of the
novel, as Gabriel is beginning to find that he wants to reconcile the urges of his blood
with those of his wife.
Here we find his final distinction
and characterization of his family line:
"I came from a people who held the wind as
brother, because he is free, and the horse as companion, because he is the living,
fleeting wind—and your mother, well, she came from men who hold the earth as
brother."
The open spaces
that defined the life the cattle-herding of Gabriel's youth and of his family before him
do have a power over Gabriel, but as his loses his three eldest son's to the draw of the
unknown, Gabriel begins to reconsider his own impulses.
". . . Every
generation, every man is a part of his past. He cannot escape it, but he may reform the
old materials, make something
new."
The llano will always
be in his blood, but Gabriel, like his wife, puts family above everything else. In order
to keep the family together going forward Gabriel realizes that he will have to give up
his dream of travelling again, moving to California, etc. He will have to accept some of
his wife's preference for remaining in one place and developing a life there; growing in
one place like the crops in the fields of the Lunas.
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