What Does Miller Mean To Me Essay

Human connection and relationship are very important in people’s lives. As psychologically proven in researches, people are social animals and they need to socialize. Being connected sometimes can give one a meaning of life and define it. In Barton’s short story, “Short Days, Dog Days” the main character Miller is very distant from his own family, neighbors, and others. When he says “The way I see it, we ain’t got nothing but short days now (89).” Miller refers to how mortal people are and how meaningless their lives are. His ideas are based on the actions and relationships of Miller having with his wife, daughter, dogs, and others, which are not healthy. However, readers would very much disagree with those ideas. People find meanings as they

Miller apparently does not appreciate his daughter Margaret being a lesbian. When he describes her outlook as her hair “looked like she’d just got it cut at a men’s barbershop by a drunk barber” (92), he demonstrates his indifference or negativity toward her choice. If he unquestionably loves her, he would love her as who she is, regardless of how she looks or what she believes. Plus, he does not really communicate well with her about what he expects and or wants of her. If he would try to have a real talk with her, it would affect her feel connected with him emotionally and want to relate to each other. Miller would become as intimate as possible to his daughter like Margaret used to think her dad was the greatest man in the world when she was a kid. Margaret changes her perception of the man during adolescence after being seen by mother as the same woman while her parents were getting worse. This could be the one of reasons, if she has become a lesbian. Especially since adolescence is still growing, parents care and their behavior is the most important to their children. It is because children see, hear and learn from their parents. However, Margaret was not nourished enough from her mom and dad because her parents were not in a good relationship and family conversations were cut off. Therefore, the inter-family gap got worse between