The short story Town of Cats by Haruki Murakami is quite an interesting turn of events. The story starts with a man, named Tengo, deciding where to travel on his day off. He thinks to himself that he could go anywhere he pleases. He decides to go to the beach area of Japan, Chikura, however, subconsciously this choice was made because that is where his father resides in a sanitarium. As Tengo proceeds on his journey to his father’s residence of the last few years, he contemplates on his early life. He tells many stories of how his father was not the best, never allowing Tengo to have a Sunday off, forcing him to go to his work with him, which was going door to door asking for the payment of radio subscriptions. This was a major factor as to why Tengo resented his father, yet he lived most of his life not knowing many clear answers about his mother and father, which in turn was the reason he decided to visit his father on this day. …show more content…
At first glance, this is a story about an estranged father and son and their own individual stories but it is also so much more. It is really about the “mysteries” of families, the dysfunction of family relationships and about a family that is shrouded by secrecy and withheld information, that it damages them and causes profound heartbreak. It is about the conundrum of families – on one hand they inform, teach and influence us and on the other hand we seek to escape and recover from its’ influences. We see how both father and son struggle to fill the void in their lives, the father runs to fill the vacuum of his life by keeping himself constantly and singularly busy with work while his son looks towards fantasy to fill in the gaps of his own
The first passage reveals the parallel suffering occurring in the lives of different members of the family, which emphasizes the echoes between the sufferings of the father and the narrator. The narrator’s father’s despair over having watched
Loss affects every relationship differently. Sometimes it brings people together, and sometimes it tears people apart. The novel “Past the Shallows”, written by Favel Parrett, is an excellent example of this, as it focuses on less vocalised subjects that most people in our society see as taboo. The aspects of society mentioned are points such as child abuse, alcohol addiction, pain, loss, and change, but most obviously the family centred in all this drama and the dysfunctional relationships formed between them. The story follows Miles, Harry, Joe, and their father, living on the south coast of Tasmania, and the struggles in their life. The themes of familial relationships, and loss feature throughout the novel, and will be discussed within this essay.
The author’s melancholic, yet, optimistic tone arouses mix feelings from his readers. Bragg clouts his readers’ perception of his father with harrowing, however, coveted recollections of the past. In the author’s comparative recount of the Father’s demeanor, he paints an unsettling, yet a hopeful life of his father:
Both parts of the family: the parents and the children, play a part in what is considered a ‘dysfunctional family’. In the story “Brother Dear” the son Greg is expected to stay and
This story represents both physical and emotional alienation as the separation of the younger brother was detrimental to both. In the story it states “For 20 years the little family I left behind wondered if I was alive, where I was and what I was like.” (81) showing that the family was deprived and missed the physical presence of the younger brother. They had no clue on what kind of a person he was and little to no recollection of his existence. The same thing can be said about the younger brother having no recollection of his family as he was taken away from a very young age. It was after twenty years, that the older brother was able to track the younger brother home; however the damage was already done. The older brother became quieter and more refined as he was deprived from a healthy brother relationship as stated by the author “It was hardest on my brother”(81). Also, the younger brother was completely isolated from his true family from an age of four, thus affecting him dearly as the author writes “… we don’t get that much time to visit anymore … brothers who never had the chance to age together” (82). The author also writes “At first it was tentative … we didn’t talk much” (82) showing how the isolation of the younger brother resulted in minimal conversations and alienated
The essay goes into great detail of his relationship with his father. He describes his father as cruel (65), bitter (65), and beautiful (64). He does mention the bad in length. On the flip side, he tells us some of the good as well. Throughout his storytelling, the reader gets a glimpse into his life and the way he feels. His feelings evolve during the extent of the essay.
The father’s way of dealing with his inner issues is reflected by the way he distracts himself with hobbies of the women he loves. This illustrates how a sudden tragedy can influence someone’s lifestyle. In fact, before his first wife passed away he showed a lot of interest in art and when she died he was lost and devastated ,” (…) after mom died, my sister and I used to worry about his living alone. And he was lonely.We knew that after putting in his usual twelve-hours workday, he would return to the empty house (...) then read medical journals until it was time to go to sleep.”(16). This implies that
The relationship between a father and his son is an essential and unique one, creating both memories and chances for many life lessons., it is quite common for a son to follow in his father’s footsteps. In the poem, “a story” by Li-Young lee, the poet uses point of view, structure, as well as diction to display the complexity of the relationship between a father and his son caused by the maturing of the son and the father’s fear of losing his son.
In both short stories, it is evident that aged traditions possess the capability to construct barriers between the strong bonds existent in families. Traditions have the ability to turn
Parents cling to their children wanting them to stay young forever, wanting endless memories and nothing to change, yet they must be able to part from these feelings to allow the child to grow. In the story “A Private Talk with Holly”, the author, Henry Felsen, uses symbolism to convey the central idea that if you love someone you have to let them go. When Holly, the main character of the story, talks to her Dad about changing her plans, he is faced with a difficult decision, but in the end he allows Holly to chase her dreams for her own good.
The memoir of Jeannette Walls had several characters, important people in her life. But, there was one specific character, her dad, that she had a close relationship with. Jeannette Walls grew up in poverty and always moved around. Her family was close, but Jeannette was closest to her father over anyone else. She loved and admired her father and defended him too. Her memoir, “The Glass Castle” is very popular. She is a grown-up now and cares about her parents. She offers to help them out of poverty, but they resist. Jeannette certainly cares for both parents, but her father has a special place in her heart. Jeannette has a special relationship with her father because she admired his heroicness, she got to pick Venus as her star, and he helped her and distracted her from being scared and in pain.
The discourse of “incest” is considered almost universally as taboo and so is the study of the phenomena of sexual relations between closely related individuals in its diverse manifestations. Literary texts at length have tried to explore incest as social and psychological deviance but the discussion moves to the margins of the narrative into unspoken or rather “unspeakable” territory. The mainstream discourse prevents the writers from representing and speaking about the theme of incest explicitly. It remains restricted to a marginal space and can be understood only through a deep exploration of the individual characters and the narrative style of the text.
The first feeling of this story is that the boy and his father struggle with their relationship, but as it unfolds, the reader sees how they do care for each other. It also becomes easier to spot the difficulties of communicating within a broken family. The father does a fine job to of turning the boy’s scheduling obsessions into a positive for the boy by noting it as one of his strong points.
Throughout literary history, authors have categorized mothers as nurturing, critical, and caring; works of literature characterize fathers, however, as providers who must examples for their children and embrace their protective, “fatherly” instincts. However, many works’ fathers fall short when it comes to acting the role of the ideal dad. Instead of being there for their children, they are away and play very miniscule roles in their children’s lives; instead of protecting he actually ends up hurting their kids. Thus, the paternal literary lens tries to determine whether or not the work’s father figure fits the “perfect father” archetype. This lens questions whether or not the father figure is his children’s active example, provider, and
Family relationships can shape one’s character and indirectly impact their personality. These influences are observed in the book The Road by Cormac McCarthy and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. The term ‘family’ does not necessarily refer to relationships by blood, but it can also relate to other types of deep emotional connections that are similar. For instance, Victor and the monster are not family, however, since Victor created the monster (Shelley, 83), he can be viewed as a father figure to his creation. In the book Frankenstein, we will explore the relationships Victor has with both his own family and with the monster. In the book, The Road we will uncover the relationship between the father and the son. By exploring the relationships from each book we will discover how these interpersonal relationships are significant in affecting each character’s behaviour. Moreover, we will compare the similarities and differences between both families