Re: My Reddit comments on Webb’s funeral

[Mark Kohut]

I think it is clear that the author has thematic meanings to the whole family. Of course, they are individuals but they are also a family in this family novel( among other things). 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Dec 31, 2021, at 5:25 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> I know that y’all are not reading ATD now, but I wanted to throw in my last 2 cents regarding something Mark ends with below.
> 
> I don’t know how you and/or Joe seem to have concluded that how any of the ways any of the Webb children “ended up” in the novel is in any manner a referendum on Webb in any regard whatsoever.  Not how good a father Webb was to them, or how faithfully any had incorporated the virtuous Union ideals that Webb taught, or that they are examples of a decline or degradation of his purity or any other morality lesson.  I start with the fact that they are *primarily* individuals.  They do each have different values and different reactions to Webb as a father and as an example which partly shapes their characters.  BUT  Those are not all different value levels  on the same measuring scale, because they are individuals, not measures in relation to Webb’s values
> 
> David Morris
> 
>> On Fri, Dec 31, 2021 at 8:39 AM Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I think, if I reread and thought as carefully as you have here, I would see better the--degradation? the decline?---of the Traverse name and values that started with a kind of purity with Webb. ....And intentionally so from TRP obviously. [authorial intent of course] .....the children, the sons, more mixed I have and would argue but I will also wait for more words from you about them.