In A Son Comes Home, Joseph Bentz uses three alternating first-person narrators in order to provide multiple perspectives on the story. This is effective because we get insight not only on the main character Chris’s personal thoughts but also his father Jack and little sister Robin’s. Chris is a college graduate who leaves his home in Indiana and moves to California due to the death of his brother David. When he returns two years later, he finds that he is still haunted by the memories from the home that he grew up in, and the pressures of his family he previously tried to escape from. I relate most to Chris because from the beginning, he is an outsider. This is important to realize when we read this passage in its entirety because it explains
In their lifetimes, many people experience the loss of loved ones and the departure of children. One of the most difficult things to do is to keep strong and good relations with friends and family members, before it is too late. The short story “David Comes Home”, by Ernest Buckler, follows Joseph, who worries his son David never had the same connection to the land as he does, though memories of past experiences, finding old belongings, and discovering the boy’s true feelings, resolve this conflict.
even when he was a teenager. Yet, Chris abandoned his family and his social life to walk into the
While he stays at Shallow Creek, his conversation with Vanessa about his views of God shows his perception of the life: he questions how such a brutal God could exist, because Chris has a lot of pain and the world in his mind is not as bright as he appears. As his responses to adversities shape his perceptions, he no longer sees the world as a place full of hopes and he cannot hide his feeling of helplessness anymore, but although he shows his emotions to Vanessa, a thirteen-year-old girl like her cannot give him much help. Chris once again tries to solve his adversities with an unreal solution because he has no one else to talk with. Later in the story he joins the war to seek for other opportunities, however this time he does not only try to escape from the reality, but he also escapes from his nature, because his nature is never a solider: as he reveals on his letter, “[He does not] live inside [his body] anymore”. One day he is sent home from the battlefield because of a mental breakdown; this event marks his total lose of perceptions: insane people do not have perceptions. Since Chris always tries to escape from the reality and never really looks for a real solution to the problems, his perception becomes irreparably
Pg 71 "why would anyone intending to 'live off the land for a few months, ' forget Boy Scout rule number one, be prepared. Why would any son cause his parents and family such permanent and perplexing pain?" There were many more people that thought Chris was a reckless idiot, but there were also many people that didn 't think Chris was a reckless idiot, and instead thought that Chris was very smart and brave for what Chris did. There were many people that Chris met during his travels and was able to truly touch their hearts and change their lives forever. Jim Gallien, Wayne Westerberg, Jon Krakauer, Walt McCandless, Billie McCandless, Carine McCandless, Charlie, Ronald Franz, and Jan Burres were some of them. Chris knew these people in life or met them during Chris travels. Chris definitely made an impact in all these people 's lives and these people probably wouldn 't call Chris a reckless idiot, but instead would call Chris intelligent and courageous. One of the people that Chris met during the travels that really stuck out was Ronald Franz. Franz was an eighty year old veteran who lived in Salton City,
This has shaped me to be who I am today, because I greatly appreciate what I have and take advantage of the opportunities I am given because not everyone is lucky enough to have what one has family plays and will always play a big influence in our lives and in this novel, we are given a great example of how it does. Although Wes didn’t know his father for long, the two memories he had of him and the endless stories his mother would share with him, helped guide him through the right path. His mother, made one of the biggest changes in Wes’s life when she decided to send him to military, after seeing he was going down the wrong path. Perhaps, the other Wes’s mother tried her best to make sure he grew up to be a good person, but unfortunately Wes never listened.
Chris expresses spirituality and individuality multiple times. He displays spirituality when he writes to his friend Ronald Franz, “I ...
Chris wanted to seek refuge from his home because of what he found out about his father. After Chris’s sophomore year of college at Emory University, during the summer he went on his usual cross-country wanderings. He went to California to visit the El Segundo neighborhood where he'd spent the first six years of his life. He called a lot of old family friends who still liv...
Chris was, for the most part, the voice of wisdom in this play whose words of honesty and its importance should have been heeded. He states, "'That kind of thing always pays off, and now it's paying off'" (620). In the end, he does take his own words to heart that "there's a universe of people outside and you're responsible to it" (653). He begins to blame on himself for his father's suicide, and Kate tells him, "'Don't dear. Don't take it on yourself'" (653).
Chris problems worsen once he's distressed with the sudden loss of his parents to an automobile accident. Once the tragic Chris suffers from multiple problems that have an effect on his existence. He claims to own problems with emotional outburst; he acts out frequently, issues forming relationships with other individuals, and has nightmares. He additionally states that he becomes upset and troublesome to regulate. He explains he's experiencing feelings of being alone, abandonment and rejection. He reverts to infringing his frustration on others, he's withdrawn, get into fights, his grades has suffe...
is also a powerful individual and possess a lot of the same character traits as chris but
...eful to show us, the narrator is not the only self-centered, melodramatic member of this family. Given the family history, we can be fairly sure that things will soon be back to normal. The narrator will move back home, and the family, welcoming the diversion, will no doubt find a way of turning her homecoming into a new round of excitement.
After analyzing Into The Wild, it is simple to see how Chris displays resiliency. Chris was always able to recover from challenging situations. If he ended up stuck somewhere, there was no way he was about to give up. He would merely hitchhike to the next town. No matter what
Throughout Into The Wild, the people Chris interacts with along his journey to Alaska make an impact on Chris. Although the people Chris met do leave an impact on him, Chris is able to leave a greater impact on the people he met. Whether it was Ron Franz, Jan Burres, or Tracy, Chris stayed with them longer than they stayed with Chris. Throughout the book, it is very evident that the impact Chris makes on people is bigger than the Impact people made on Chris.
The significance of the father’s story and “Coming Home Again” is to show the growing disconnection between a son and a mother. All the mother wants is for her son to be more successful than she is, even if she occasionally regrets sending him away to school. Consequently, the son becomes impatient and distant—as most teenagers do—until he matures into an adult and begins to regret the negative attitude he once held towards his mother. Unfortunately, his mother’s early death caused remorse for his negative attitude towards her as a teenager. Nonetheless, he remains connected with her after her cancer-related death through cooking, in which he finds himself cooking the exact way she would.
All in all, it is interesting how the trials of life can lead a person into an awakening that inspires millions. Many people believe that walking “into the wild” to live off the land and find himself alone in nature was arrogant, foolish and irresponsible. Chris lacks of knowledge about the wild was a major factor in his death. Chris did not plan how he will survive in the wilderness without proper equipments. He misunderstood that he would have no problem in setting in the wild. Chris immature manner and decisions lead him to starvation and ultimately death. If he planned it out in the beginning he would have saved his life.