Comparing Home in Richard Fords I Must Be Going and...

Comparing Home in Richard Fords I Must Be Going and Scott Sanders Homeplace Most people define home as a comfortable setting which provides love and warmth. In Scott Sanders â€Å"Homeplace† and Richard Ford’s â€Å"I Must Be Going† the concept of home is defined in two different ways. Sanders believes that by moving from place to place, the meaning of home has been diminished. Sanders believes that America’s culture â€Å"nudges everyone into motion† (Sanders 103) and that his â€Å"longing to become an inhabitant rather than a drifter† (103) is what sets him apart from everyone else. Ford prefers to stay on the move. His argument is life’s too short to settle in one place. He believes home is where you make it, but permanence is not a†¦show more content†¦Sanders has a different opinion of moving just to see other places. Sanders believes that in order to know a place one must â€Å"root† themselves into it. Sanders proposes that â€Å"if you are not yourself placed, then you wander the world like a sightseer, a collector of sensations, with no gauge for measuring what you see† (103). Ford has a different feeling. He believes that seeing all of these places creates memory, and imagination of these other places just provides an illusion of what is really going on in the world. He says, â€Å"Memory always needs replenishing, and anyway you misunderstand imagination and how it thrives in us by extending partial knowledge to complete any illusion of reality† (Ford 110). Sanders would disagree that home is not a place. He starts out his essay with a story of a family whose house is destroyed by a tornado three times. Each time they rebuild in the same spot. Sanders admires this family for their commitment to their home. Sanders believes length of time in an area has a definite effect on someone’s meaning for that place. Sanders is encouraged by the words of Gary Snyder in The Practice of the Wild: â€Å"You know, I think if people stay somewhere long enough, the spirits will begin to speak to them† (104). Ford does not believe in commitment to a place. He quotes Ralph Emerson saying, â€Å"We live amid surfaces, and the true art of life is to skate well on them† (Ford