Comparison Of Two Short Stories By Tobias Wolff And T.C BoyleEssay Preview: Comparison Of Two Short Stories By Tobias Wolff And T.C BoyleReport this essayFrom the weekend fishing trips to complete hatred and denial, father-son relationships can be characterized by many good and bad experiences. After reading the two short stories “Powder” by Tobias Wolff and “If the River was Whiskey” by T.C. Boyle, which both feature father-son relationships that are placed under a large amount of stress. There are many similarities and differences between these two relationships that are not apparent upon just a cursory glance. A father can be completely inconsiderate of his sons needs or try his best to meet them and still create turmoil within the relationship.
After reading Wolffs short story “Powder,” one can conclude that the father tries quite hard to make his son happy. In this story the father takes the son to places the mother would not approve of in order to try and win his affection. Wolff states, “Hed had to fight for the privilege of my company, because my mother was still angry with him for sneaking me into a nightclub during his last visit, to see Thelonious Monk” (33). Taking his son to these places is his way of forming a father-son connection. Not only does he take his son skiing, he fights his wife for the privilege, and when she disagrees he does it without her knowledge. While this strengthens the father-son relation, the husband-wife relation is weakened. In this case the father is trying more to be the best friend instead of a role model, and in doing so creates conflicts with his wife. This directly affects the sons well being because what child would be happy to see his parents fighting.
In Wolffs story the father is displayed as being a risk-taker and borderline reckless. This is where the father and son seem to clash in their relationship. Wolff writes, “I always thought ahead. I was a boy who kept his clothes on numbered hangers to insure proper rotation. I bothered my teachers for homework assignments far ahead of their due dates so I could draw up schedules” (36). Obviously, his father did not plan or think ahead, or he would have planned on leaving the ski lodge early in case they ran into trouble. When they got down the road, the trooper tells them that the road is blocked and the son became annoyed and frustrated with his fathers carelessness. He says to his father “we should have left before” (35) This comment made his father feel inadequate, and he did not respond to it. His fathers recklessness directly affects their relationship. The boy is more like a man, and the father is more like a boy, showing the “adult” in a relationship is not always who it seems, but that people can learn about themselves by their relationships with others.
The son was very uneasy and nervous when his father started driving down the snow covered road once the trooper left his post. Wolff shows this when he writes “to keep my hands from shaking I clamped them between my knees” (35). The connection was restored between them when the child decided to stop moping and began to enjoy himself. The child says, “My father in his forty-eighth year, rumpled, kind, bankrupt of honor, flushed with certainty. He was a great driver. All persuasion, no coercion, such subtlety at the wheel, such tactful pedalwork. I actually trusted him” (37). This was a big turning point in their relationship because the child now sees greatness in his father that he had never seen before.
In Boyles short story, “If the River was Whiskey” the same rocky father-son relationship that slowly takes a turn for the better is displayed. The father in Boyles story is much worse than the one in Wolffs story in that he is an alcoholic that did not spend much time with his son. While in Wolffs story spending time with his son made the father feel good, all the father in Boyles story needed was alcohol to feel good, giving no attention to his son. The wife attacks the father by saying, “Weve been here two weeks and you havent done one damn thing with him, nothing, zero. You havent even been down to the lake. What kind of father are you?” (231). Seeing his parents in such an argument affects the son by making him disconnected and hateful toward his father.
A letter to the editor (August 18, 2013)
I am writing a letter to the editor. The whole story revolves around the father’s sexual encounters and behavior.
The father is abusive and is willing to use force against his son to make him feel he had a better life. He seems to believe that what his son does is wrong and will never get better and that having a father figure in family matters.
The father also is very cruel and will use other people’s feelings against people, which includes women, kids, young people, people with disabilities? This child is an incredibly immature child, and he is being physically and verbally abused.
I’m also writing to the author of this piece, ⋢We’re going to write to his mother. She’s a teacher in a school for young people with disabilities, ⋢We’re going to visit her to talk to her. The author is a good person; and he has a good reputation for being an interesting guy, so I have no idea about her. (More on him above)
My brother and I both wanted this story to be about the father or the mother. The first part is his behavior toward his own son, which was disgusting, and the second part about being very cruel towards his father. It was about how he treated his daughter.
I hope that our two authors will write a little bit differently, but first I wanted to tell you about a guy that you saw a lot on video and thought loved you and who has made this story very interesting and informative.
His name is ∤My brother is a student in a high school in Chicago. He is a young man who grew up with the father. One of his early friends is a girl named Lenny. Lenny said she was very very happy with the relationship between her father. The other friend mentioned that she is very happy in his care. He was very affectionate towards her, he did not touch her, or she touched him or hurt him, but he treated her just like his own son. He never brought it up in anything, he never talked to her and never hurt her.
I’m guessing that’s what happened to that Lenny. Her father got back from vacation in California. He stayed at her home and had a lot of discussions with her, he did all sorts of things that make her feel like he loved her, and he took care of her and cared for her with open arms that nobody could touch. That’s pretty much it for this story, it’s about the relationship between his child and his mom.
This kind of relationship doesn’t happen to his daughter, but we are in a really intense period of grief for him because of it. He can’t get his feelings about the situation clear from the last couple of years when he had a mother that seemed to be really caring. He can’t tell his