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Comparing Puppy, Two Kinds, And Powder By Tobias Wolff

Decent Essays
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Joseph Ahn
Period 1
Puppy, Two Kinds, Powder
Essay

Versions Of Love

Love is represented in various ways. Some people understand love differently than others. In the end, love is what fuels many of people’s decisions. In the three short stories, “Puppy”, “Two Kinds”, and “Powder”, a parent is willing to take any sort of action to give their child eventual happiness. Even if it means backlash, the parents are willing to risk and sacrifice. Although, the parents of each stories, represent their love in different fashions, they are all meant to give their child a more improved life.
In the story “Puppy” by George Saunders, two mothers, Marie and Callie have troublesome sons that they desperately try to contain. Marie can control her son josh’s …show more content…

Between father and son we can see a representation of modern day "broken home” situations. The role of father and son has been reversed in this story. Not only does their relationship contain holes, the son seems to be the more mature one of the two. The values of being part of a family has sabotaged the Father’s marriage with his son’s mother. He is an a man who has a constant need for adrenaline, and that rush he gets what makes him constantly ask his ex-wife for forgiveness. As the father rushes to get his boy, home to his mother, he is blocked off by police after a “dangerous” snow storm. He decides to drive past the barricade when police leave and although he is trying to please the boy’s mother, to the son, it is just another one of his rushes. Everything the father lacks in family values, his son covers with nervousness. He “sticks to his father like white on rice.” During the nervous car ride in a car that the father can barely afford, the father calms the boy down and helps him take in the moment, by talking about his and his son’s strong points. At the end of the story, the narrator concedes that they are going to be caught and resigned to it. He “began to enjoy

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