Hugh Garner's Short Story The Estranged Father

Scott Russell Sanders’ “Under the Influence” is about a family growing up with alcoholism, mental and physical abuse. When Sanders was very young, he didn’t recognize that his father was an alcoholic, but as he grew older, he saw the bloodshot eyes, hiding alcohol, the deceptions, and the dual personalities of an alcoholic. “My father drank. He drank as a gut-punched boxer gasps for breath, as a starving dog gobbles food—compulsively, secretly, in pain and trembling.” (215). Sanders story starts at the end, where his father dies from alcoholism. The turmoil and fear this family suffered because of their father’s alcoholism, is a story a lot of families are familiar with.

She describes the disappointing effects of her father’s recidivistic alcoholism on her psyche and family income, stating that “After all he’d put himself through, I couldn’t believe Dad had gone back to the booze… With dad drinking again, and no money coming in…”(123) Walls, in clear concise language, illustrates the destructive nature of alcoholism, and its tendency to cause poverty and lead to the destruction of trust in relationships. The correlation between

Primarily, Sanders obtains the trust of the audience by establishing a common struggle. The intended audience of Sanders’ essay includes the sons or daughters of alcoholic parents. By sharing his personal testimony, Sanders reveals to the audience to have experienced the same

In Scott Russell Sanders’ memoir titled “Under the Influence,” he recalls his childhood and his father’s losing battle with alcoholism. First, Sanders starts with his father’s death from alcohol. Though his father had a problem, he never admitted having one. Sanders goes through his memory of his father and the times when he drank. He looks back onto situations where he and his siblings would encounter their dad consuming alcohol on a very regular basis. Then he describes how he struggled with his father's drinking. Sanders refers to how society portrays alcohol and the people who suffer from alcoholism. He also describes the literature aspect of the word “drunk.” Sanders follows

Alcoholism does not only affect a person’s physical, mental, and emotional state, but it also changes the lives of people close to the drinker forever. It ruins relationships and trust that took years to build up, and may never be able to be restored. In Jeannette Walls’s memoir, The Glass Castle, she tells the story of her childhood in which her father was an alcoholic. Jeannette’s father, Rex Walls, was brilliant and charismatic when he was sober, but when he drank, he was destructive and dishonest.

It is hard to have a healthy relationship with someone when they are controlled by alcohol. The relationship between John Purcell and his son had drifted apart more and more by his actions and his choice of being alcoholic. As inconsiderate as John he says to a curate "Three dollars! Why, I could have taken Johnny to a burlesque show for less than that." There is a little boy present and their parents do not want their children exposed to such inappropriate jokes like John often expressed. John is inconsiderate therefore he does things without thinking. His recklessness continued when he met another untrustworthy father at the meeting. At that point when the outsider offered him a drink, he expected it happily expressing “You’re a lifesaver,” because of his dependence on alcohol he humiliated his child much further; and had not taken his wife’s oath of being on his best conduct into thought. When he went up the stairs to receive Johnny’s reward, on the way he trips and falls making his son embarrassed and

“Alcohol addiction stunts the spiritual, emotional and mental growth of a person”~Anonymous. Sherman Alexie’s novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, is a book based off the author’s teenage life. The novel is about a poor 14 year old named Junior who faced numerous challenges in his life. Junior has experienced bullying, he was called a traitor for following his dreams, got in a huge fight with his best friend and lost three very important people in his life because of alcohol. Fortunately in the end, Junior got through the pain and lived on but he learned many lessons. One of the lessons Junior learned was that the fall into addiction, in this situation alcohol, leads to a great deal of misery for the individual and those

Hugh Garner’s short story the father has the following significant themes: alcoholism, denial, ignorance, insecurity and neglect. Each theme is conveyed through the characters actions. Alcoholism is expressed through the numerous drinks John Purcell has before and during the banquet. The effects of alcohol are also conveyed through John Purcell’s inappropriate comments, behaviour and lack of self-control. For example the phrase about taking his son to a burlesque show and raising his son, Jonny Purcell’s hand into the air when he receives his lifesaving certificate and badge for hobby craft. Denial is expessed through the irony of John Purcell’s belief that he’s superior to the other fathers because they are too involved when Jonny wishes his

“'The Father.” By Hugh Garner is a short story involving two characters; and a father and son’s troubled relationship. The story touches on how you can be there and have the responsibilities of being a father without actually being a father. The dad John Purcell and his son are going to the son’s Boy scout banquet meeting the following night. John grudgingly replies that he will go only for his son since the banquet only happens once a year. On the way to the meeting, John makes awkward small talk with the son he barely knows. Proceeding to get to the church he ruins the evening because of the alcohol he consumes earlier in the night; which causes him to become impaired and unable to make proper decisions. The story brings up the effects of alcoholism and how it is the object you turn to to help you through uneventful or stressful situations. It brings up qualities that a good parent does not and should not have.

A choice of not putting the effort and vitality in building a relationship can make a person irresponsible, which impacts a relationship. When he discovered that Johnny doesn’t have a full scout uniform because of lack of money, his first response was “What’s the matter with this family anyway? God knows what the neighbor must think of me.” What others thought was more important to him than his own family. John Purcell's alcoholic habit has moved him far from the association with his child despite the fact that he was attempting to get near to him. "On the evening of the banquet, he was a little late getting home, having stopped in for a few drinks with a customer who was buying an industrial site," he demonstrated an absence of judgment by having a drink before he even returned home from work making him late to the scout meeting, which was a critical meeting for his son. John Purcell never puts the time, exertion and effort to

John could have obtained council from someone less personally involved in her case, but the only help he sought was for the condition of the house and the baby. He obtained a nanny to watch over the children while he was away at work each day: "It is fortunate Mary is so good with the baby." He also had his sister Jennie take care of the house. "She is a perfect and enthusiastic housekeeper." There is one instance, however, when he does talk of taking her to an expert for assistance, "John says if I don 't pick up faster he shall send me to Weir Mitchell in the fall." Nevertheless she took that as a threat since Dr. Mitchell was even more domineering than her husband and his brother. Perhaps, if she had been allowed to come and go and do as she pleased her depression might have lifted, "I think sometimes that if I were only well enough to write a little it would relieve the press of ideas and rest me." It seems to her that just being able to tell someone how she really feels would have eased her depression, but her husband would not hear of it because of the embarrassing consequences it could bring to the family name. Thus, John has made her a prisoner in their marriage where her opinions are pushed aside, and her self-worthiness questioned.

In the short story, A Fathers Story by Andre Debus, a man named Luke Ripley is challenged by a decision that effects himself, the people he loves, and his faith. The author, Dubus, uses what a man named Paul Fussell describes as "the literary-artistic-historical sensibility"

This is well evident when Sander articulates that “He became a stranger, as fearful to us as any graveyard lunatic, not quite frothing at the mouth but fierce enough, quick-tempered, explosive; who would ease his pain? Not mother, who fussed and pleaded but could not budge him; not my brother and sister, who were only kids”. This clearly reveals the disappointments they had towards their father’s addiction in drinking.

It is said that the child of an alcoholic father can go two ways. They can either follow in his footsteps or abstain from the drink. To a certain extent, this ideology can apply to the 240-acre town of Kenilworth. Here there are football games on Sundays, where sons join their fathers in fear of being deemed gay by their peers. There are cliques of mothers with their book clubs and luncheons and daughters maintaining the family alliances. There is the danger to children as young as eight being called a snitch by their closest of friends, while muffling their cries at night with a pillow in confusion of what to do. Kenilworth is a town hidden behind three million dollar homes and blonde highlighted hair, where suicides are thrown under the rug

“I am a fatherless daughter that survived your failure. I’m moving forward, my life is better than yours. I’m better than you, and you are missing out on something spectacular.”(unknown). An experience that has shaped my identity is when my dad had left and signed his parental rights. While my mom and dad were married, he was abusive and wouldn’t treat her right. My mom would leave me with my grandma so that I wouldn’t see the stuff my dad would do to my mom. My mom decided to leave my dad, so then my dad took my mom to court.