Author’s Note: This is a Character Development piece about
how the character Cole changes in the book Touching Spirit Bear. Cole doesn’t think he has to change but as he
finds out, he does need a change.
At the beginning of Touching Spirit Bear by Ben Mikealsen,
the main character Cole hates every speck of life including a fellow student
Peter. Cole bullies just about every kid in his school
and when he hears that a boy named Peter is talking bad about him, you know
something is going to go down. After
school Cole strikes with UFC like power and causes Peter have real issues. Cole is sent to a bare Alaskan island for a
punishment and is forced to survive for 6 months. At this point everyone knows Cole needs to
change.
While Cole was on the island a huge series of events
occurred that helps Cole become the man at the end of the book. First, Cole burns all of his supplies so he
has no food, and then he tries to kill a random white bear. The white bear turned out to be a Spirit Bear
which mauled Cole leaving multiple flesh wounds and barley any life left in
him. It is a struggle, but Cole somehow
makes it back to the camp and survive long enough for rescue after this Cole is
a changed man.
When Cole returns from his punishment he is anew person. His attitude for life changed, as well as his
attitude for Peter. As the book quotes
“Cole put down the bag. Today things are going to change.” On the first day back Cole visits Peter and
help him recover, even though he s still immobilized Cole helped Peter recover
a lot. After Cole does this the people
in the town start changing their attitude towards Cole. All of the kids don’t rat him out after he
does something small and the cops act a little nicer to him.
Not only does Cole affect the lives of the people in the
book, but he also affects the reader. At
first the reader thinks that Cole is lifeless being with no sole. Although as the book goes on the reader feels
Cole’s pain when he is hurt in the woods and end up loving him after he
returns. He really influences the reader
to not make the choices he makes, because there will be consequences.
This transformation is similar in the book The Call of the
Wild where the main character, Buck, who goes to the Tundra to escape from life, which is basically what
Cole did in Touching Spirit Bear. Both
character need to change their life Cole needs to handle his anger and Buck has
to escape from dog slavery. The
characters receive countless beating shaping them into the finished figure they
are at the end of the book.
Cole’s appearance changed in a whole bunch of ways. First, he started acting nicely to everybody
he sees as to the mean Cole where he would bully everyone. Also, when the community sees that Cole is
helping out Peter, they start to like him more too. Now everybody in the town likes Cole more and
he is feeling better about himself.
