Simple Recipess: The Closing Down Of Summer By Allister Macleod

Simple recipes FOCUS ON JUST LONLINESS

The closing down of summer.

“Simple recipes” by Madeleine Thien, and “The Closing Down of Summer” by Allister MacLeod both take focus on the struggles of isolation or alienation in their families, caused by the separation of cultural identities, or being away from home due to work. The impression of isolation found in the text is generated from the circumstantial behaviours among the character’s actions, thoughts, or exchange of language. Macleod focuses on how his protagonist has become detached from his family, losing the ability to communicate to them due to his seasonal occupation and adapting to the sub-culture of his work life. Whereas Thiens story demonstrates how the behaviour of a parent’s

A specific tension in the story is the inability to pass down the mother tongue from parent to child. For the son of the family faces criticism against his father when he chooses not too, or cannot speak Malaysian (Mandarin). The inability to speak his parental language detaches the ability of child and parent too fully communicate. Given the language barrier both parties face, generating a vagueness in the ability understanding one-another. The Criticism in the son’s inability to speak their language by referring to him as “lazy, because he chooses not to remember” (150) over the idea of forgetting his first language, due to the adaption of a new cultural upbringing. Consequently, both father and son harshly criticise one another, generating the indication of alienation. Evidently both parties see each other as the odd one. This is understood in the son’s angry outburst in referring to his father as “chink”(153). The use of a racial derogatory term signifies how the son alienates his father as someone who is the other, doesn’t belong, and doesn’t accept. For the father desires to keep to his oriental ways, but consequently distances himself from his children. Moreover, Thien uses the phrase as a way to express the son’s perspective in how he rejects his hereditary background, expressing his isolated state within the family. This in effect

Likewise to Thiens story as the father stands in the doorway, incapable to speak and properly express himself. The narrator’s desire to show his children what he goes through on a daily basis in order to maintain their life-style, and what he wants them to avoid. The figurative Gaelic warrior always preparing themselves for death. The unseen fatherly actions, sacrifices, and hardships made within the mining shaft with the sole intention for the betterment of his family. He surpasses the duty of fatherhood, yet consequently loses the emotional ties with his children. The missed opportunities to act as a parent, which is done in Thiens story; The mother’s action in soothing the daughter, or the act of a father rearing his children, are examples of missed moments in fulfilling the role as a parent. The missed sentimental realization that he want present for the birth of any of his children, the death of two, nor being present for any youthful accomplishment or occasions. Someone else stepped in taking his role as a father, which is emphasized that “broken tricycle wheels and dolls with crippled limbs have been mended by other hands than mine” For there is a painful realization in Macleon’s fatherly figure, being the odd parent that returns for a short span of time to try and regain his role as a