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,
Towards the climax of the passage, the young girl shares her perspective on her dad’s desire to help her achieve her academic goals. “Nothing’s more important than his books and vocabulary words. He might say I matter, but when he goes on a scavenger hunt for a book, I realize that I really don’t” (Lopez 26). This cite illustrates just how sightless the teenage narrator is because she fails to see that her father only left the dinner table to assist her and to do something generous, but from her perspective she takes it as her father abandoning her. I can infer that the child’s anger and feeling of not mattering, which led to her storming off to her room, could have easily been solved if she asked her father what his true intentions were in pushing Watership Down so hard during a nice family dinner. On the other hand, the dad in “Confetti Girl” simply doesn’t pay attention to his daughter’s feelings often enough, and that sets off a bomb of conflict in their relationship as well. At the end of the excerpt, the father stoops to find a book, but is so engrossed in his task that he practically treats his daughter as non-existent; she narrates the following emotion-filled line. “He doesn’t hear my angry, stomping footsteps” (Lopez 27). This cite portrays that the father is
“I wish you weren’t my parent!” A phrase often said to parents when their children are upset. In “Tortilla Sun” written by Jennifer Cervantes, and “Confetti Girl” written by Diana Lopez, the same type of frustration arises. “Tortilla Sun” involves a girl and her mother in an argument. The girl’s mother decides to pursue her education and needs to leaves her daughter at her grandma’s house. “Confetti Girl” is similar; the main conflict is a daughter missing her mother, and her father not being able to bond with her. Because of the divergent mindsets of both parents and their children, awkward and tense situations cause conflicts in both short stories.
It all began with three beautiful daughters tested to the extent of how much they loved their father. Three beautiful daughters in competition with one another. Three beautiful daughters with no real winner. The novel, A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley, is an adaption of the play King Lear by William Shakespeare. These literary works differ greatly from each other. However, both establish a certain type of dynamic within the family. Smiley’s adaptation features a similar patriarchal household to the one that is present in Shakespeare’s when showcasing the relationship with a father and daughter, and by expanding on this idea, she creates a new, separate work.
Equally to Capulet in “Romeo and Juliet”, the father in “Her Father” is also a caring and loving character. He is “at hand” when his daughter meets her date. This indicates to the reader that the father is protective of ...
Is this some lascivious desire on his part, or is she a refuge from responsibility, or personal shortcoming. We must guess. We know he can’t begin to see his father, yet we are never told why. Much is made over his father allowing him to use the car as if the car is a symbol of adulthood and freedom, but looking under the surface, the car is also a symbol of the father’s responsibility to his family as the car allows him to take care of his real estate business. We can assume that the father was an uncaring brute to his son, or surmise that he is merely a clueless, but well-meaning man of early 20th century America. A father that can’t understand his son is the obvious implication, but Hemingway leaves open another interpretation, that the son is so ashamed of himself that he can’t bear to see his father lest his father suspect his
Atwood describes her father’s ambition to show her some of the finer things in life and the beauty of nature and nature’s way of life.
A parent may want to understand their child and connect to them, but they may not know how to do it. In Li-Young Lee’s poem “A Story”, the literary devices point of view, metaphors, and the structure of the poem are used to portray the complex relationship of the father and child and their inability to be able to connect with one another despite their wishes to do so.
In the story “Nature Lessons” by Nancy Lord, Mary is Marco’s daughter and she lives in Los Angeles and her father lives in Alaska. Her father Marco tries so hard to build a closer relationship with his daughter but it’s really hard for him because of the different values they have. For instance, he starts by showing Mary how he really loves her “Passing the garden, he slowed his step he’d scared her once today, tiptoeing through the cabin”. This indicates how he cares and loves her so much he does not want to make any noise to scare her. Along with that Mary is excited to go to Sea World in August with her mother. Her father said “Don’t bother with the Sea World stay with me and I’ll show you some real orcas, not ones that balance balls on
Bradstreet, Anne. "To My Dear Children." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: Norton & Company, 1999. 144-147.
Parents in today’s world face many issues regarding their children and often search for skills to achieve best parenting strategies. Such a trending issue is gender creativity, which journalist Sabrina Erderly presents in her article named “About a Girl: Coy Mathis’ Fight to Change Gender” which was published in Rolling Stones magazine. Coy Mathis is a gender creative child who struggles to part from her biological identity to establish herself as a girl in an embracing community. This real story portrays the issue of gender creativity, the role of society around a gender creative child, and most importantly, the role of parents. Writer Ryan Harty points out a similar concept and parenting strategy in his science fiction story, “Why the Sky Turns Red When the Sun Goes Down” which is about a mechanical child named Cole and his human parents Mike and Dana. In his story, Harty illustrates this fictional character with a very common situation often experienced by many real world children. In the story, Cole is describes as a D-3 child- a notion of mechanical human common in Cole’s life. Cole’s parents, Mike and Dana, adopt him in place of a real child and face many problems. Like other machines, Cole sometimes malfunctions and breaks down. He twitches his hands, rotates his head in abnormal ways, and unintentionally hits himself damaging his own body. While tackling this problem, Cole’s parents disagree about his future and argue whether to upgrade him to D-4. Cole’s father, Mike, does not want to change him since it would mean a child with a completely different personality. On the other hand, Dana, Cole’s mother, does not want to deal with his malfunctioning anymore and wants to repair him. Cole’s mo...
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 influence family members can have on the development of a child is enormous; they can either mold a healthy mind or drive a child toward darkness. Jennifer Egan’s Safari is a short story that highlights the different relationships in a family with a complicated background. Rolph and Charlie come from a divorced household and join their father, Lou, and his new girlfriend, Mindy, on an African safari. As the events of the trip unfold, Lou’s children experience a coming of age in which they lose the innocence they once possessed. The significant impact of family dynamic on children’s transition into adulthood is presented in Safari. Jennifer Egan uses Mindy’s structural classifications of Charlie and Rolph to demonstrate how Lou and Mindy’s relationship hinders the maturation of the two kids.
Parent/Child relationships are very hard to establish among individuals. This particular relationship is very important for the child from birth because it helps the child to be able to understand moral and values of life that should be taught by the parent(s). In the short story “Teenage Wasteland”, Daisy (mother) fails to provide the proper love and care that should be given to her children. Daisy is an unfit parent that allows herself to manipulated by lacking self confidence, communication, and patience.
Unrealistically, the narrator believes that she would be of use to her father more and more as she got older. However, as she grows older, the difference between boys and girls becomes more clear and conflicting to her.
While the relationship between fathers and sons has been documented at length, the father/ daughter dynamic figures less prominently in literary tropes; in fact the last canonical piece I can recall reading was Euripedes’ Electra in high school. The tenuous relationship between Daddy and his little girl, however, harbors depths more personal and tangible than Greek tragedy and psychological analyses invoking the Electra complex. The emotionally void or aloof father in particular often burdens the female psyche, for his absence proves just as palpable as his sought after presence, shaping the landscape of a daughter’s future relationships and the construction of a self-image fragmented and disjointed by an early and intimate knowledge of rejection and abandonment. Transcending characterizations attached primarily to filial duty as experienced by the matriarch, the father figure remains the subject of mythologization, just as Sylvia Plath turned her father into a Colossus, a cold, inanimate stone edifice revealing none of his secrets or affection.