The short story “Rely” by Deborah was written in a way that I was able to emotionally connect with the characters. They had meaning to me. The story showed what one man went through in his life. The bad and the good, and the emotions that came along with it. The characters were well developed with their own personalities, each displaying how they felt with what was happening. The story was hard to follow in some parts due to the very rapid changes in thoughts and time periods coming from the narrator. I particularly liked the flashbacks to when Alicia was young and her and her dad had a very close relationship, very similar to my own with my dad. My dad and I have always been very close doing everything together. This helped me easily relate …show more content…
The father, a quiet middle aged man, sad due to loneliness because of the loss of his wife and his daughter away at med school. He lives a very repetitive life getting up and working. He is constantly reliving the past in his mind, thinking about his true father figure George, and what they used to do together. “When George was around, he was the one who usually tucked me into bed and told me a story. I was eight then and thought I was too old for bedtime Stories.” (99) This quote shows when the narrator was young and George took care of him, being his role model. The narrator also relives the times spent with his daughter, skating, talking and playing around. This is seen in this quote: “As soon as the water froze, I spent every Saturday morning with Alicia. I wrapped her in a scarf, mitts, toque, and we’d head over to the ice.” (65) He explains that life was simple and joyful when Alicia was young. They could enjoy being together and admire the simplicity of life. He then became a plain man living a boring life when she left. That is until his daughter comes …show more content…
They respect and love each other very much. Even without seeing each other for a long time, they can always rely on each other to be there. Hence the title “Rely”. The narrator and his daughter, Alicia, have a bond that could last through anything. When Alicia was young, they had to learn to lean on each other and create their own traditions when Alicia’s mother had left. Traditions such as “Christmas Day, Alicia and I go for a skate, make a simple dinner. We take it easy.” (23) They lived a simple life but they appreciated each other enough to be happy with it. The father (narrator) loves his daughter with all of his heart. He became a man like George, knowing that family is the most important thing in life. Because of the impact he had on his daughter’s life, Alicia also felt the same. She missed her dad and knew that the love between them was more important than anything else. The narrator seemed to be a wonderful father. He was her rock. “I try to be the still point, a rock in the bank. I stay put, so that when my daughter calls to say, ‘I hate this city,’ I’m right here to pick up the phone.” (4) He would also always help in any way he could. “‘Dad, guess what?’ She was out of breath. ‘I helped deliver a baby!’ That’s why I work six, seven days a week—to hear Alicia happy. To help her pay her tuition and go off and live her life. She appreciates it.” He may miss her, but he would rather see her
Every father wishes to cherish the time he has with his daughter before it is too late and she springs her wings and flies away on her own path, all grown up. In the short story “Nature Lessons”, by Nancy Lord, the author displays a relationship between a father and daughter: Marco and Mary Alicia (Mary). Both are polar opposites and as a result of geographical distances, Marco loses much precious time with Mary; hence, they are not able to connect well with each other. Marco being from the grand playground of Alaska, enjoys nature and “encounters with God’s other creatures,” (1), whereas Mary, who lives in the beehive of Los Angeles, is a superficial city girl who enjoys modern pop culture and is enticed by designer objects. Unlike her father,
Ten year old Esther Burr creates a cheerful, reminiscent journal entry describing her day out with her father by using sophisticated word choice and an informal sentence structure. Burr’s purpose is to reveal her adoration for her father with flattering words and to also describe her day with such detail that she won’t forget it. She develops a complimentary tone in order to not only have a good memory of her father later in life, but also to appeal to her mother, who regularly reads her diary.
The story itself was quite interesting. The characters are believable and some had obvious arcs, the plot seems well paced, and most plot points are memorable. The dialogue didn’t seem forced, and flowed fairly realistically. The conflict, Devine Corporations vs the Beanfield (well, really, it’s owner but…), ended well, with Devine not being able to do anything about it, not for a lack of trying.
Once I get past all of the rambling I did in the past paragraphs, I honestly really enjoyed the book. Though it wasn't like most of the other books I’ve read (meaning I didn't cry during the process of reading it), the characters were just as provokingly interesting as the characters in other stories, it was a little edgy and made me want to yell at it, shouting at Sam when she wouldn’t let Tyler play video games with Danny, or Danny when he called to have Sam and Tyler taken to a separate facility. Overall, this book opened me up to something that just isn't a romance novel. This story really shows that there are people with a lot of difficulties in their lives, and that’s what I liked the most about it.
The author really keeps the reader own edge and guessing what will happen next throughout the pages. I find that I can connect to the book on a cultural standpoint from living in the Appalachian Mountains .It is very interesting to me that she based this on her own family history. The book starts out telling two completely different stories,
“Tiny, Smiling Daddy” opens with “one of those pure, beautiful dreams in which he was young again, and filled with realization that the friends who had died, or gone away, or decided that they didn’t like him anymore, had really been there all along, loving him” (Gaitskill 305), and through this nostalgic state the father’s reaveled as a character who ha...
I found the book to be easy, exciting reading because the story line was very realistic and easily relatable. This book flowed for me to a point when, at times, it was difficult to put down. Several scenes pleasantly caught me off guard and some were extremely hilarious, namely, the visit to Martha Oldcrow. I found myself really fond of the char...
Growing up, George had a wild childhood. His parents owned a tavern, which they lived above, and they were rarely around to give George the guidance a small child needs. George felt little love from his parents. He came from a poor family and sometimes didn't even know where his next meal was coming from.
The father “rubs his chin” and “scratches his ear” due to his inability to remember a story from the top of his head, even though there is “a room full of books in a world of stories”. However, it is not literal as in the story is not the problem, it is the son’s viewpoint of his father and him thinking that his father cannot satisfy his wishes. The story he wishes for is not one that involves adventures or superheroes, but rather asking his father to do something for him as if his father hasn’t done anything for him in the first place. The boy is growing up and as he grows away from his father and the father knows that this is happening as “he sees the day the boy goes” and he downright dreads that.
had a good influence on her life. But the happier he made her, the further she had to fall emotionally when he left
The author uses imagery, contrasting diction, tones, and symbols in the poem to show two very different sides of the parent-child relationship. The poem’s theme is that even though parents and teenagers may have their disagreements, there is still an underlying love that binds the family together and helps them bridge their gap that is between them.
The author did a great job on using the story to show what happened to her when she had the same problem. With her writing the story about events
Janie decided that she must separate from Logan in order to revive her dream of true love. Ultimately, Janie’s interpretation of love matured just as she had, so she began to alter her knowledge of love. Nanny loved and cared for Janie, but she also deceptively manipulated every aspect of her life. Nanny lived the life that she longed for through Janie’s life. “Here Nanny had taken the biggest thing God ever made, the horizon.and pinched it in to such a little bit of a thing that she could tie it about her granddaughter’s neck tight enough to choke her.
The father’s character begins to develop with the boy’s memory of an outing to a nightclub to see the jazz legend, Thelonius Monk. This is the first sign of the father’s unreliability and how the boy’s first recollection of a visitation with him was a dissatisfaction to his mother. The second sign of the father’s lack of responsibility appears again when he wanted to keep taking the boy down the snowy slopes even though he was pushing the time constraints put on his visitation with his son. He knew he was supposed to have the boy back with his mother in time for Christmas Eve dinner. Instead, the father wanted to be adventurous with his son and keep taking him down the slopes for one last run. When that one last run turned into several more, the father realized he was now pushing the time limits of his visit. Even though he thought he was going to get him home, he was met with a highway patrol’s blockade of the now closed road that led home.
The relationship between a father and his son can be articulated as without a doubt the most significant relationship that a man can have throughout the duration of his life. To a further extent the relationship between a father and a son can be more than just a simple companionship. Just like a clown fish and a sea anemone, both father and son will rely on each other in order to survive the struggles of their everyday lives. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and Gabriele Muccino’s The Pursuit of Happyness both depict a story between a father and son using each other as a means of survival when faced with adversity. When placed in a tough situation father and son must create a symbiotic relationship in order to survive. Upon the duo of father and son can creating a symbiotic relationship, it will result in a mutual dependency on each other. This theme of paternal love is omnipresent given the bond between the two characters.