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| My Old Man, by Ernest Hemingway The child's view of his father Hemingway uses a first-person narrative in this story, fact that contributes to put us in Joe's place from the start. This story can be separated in two parallel tracks: 1 - The instability surrounding "old man" Butler's career as a Jockey; 2 - The tensions surrounding Joe's naive narration. And it's this second track that I'll follow. We see so much more of his father than Joe does. Joe's naivety is a clue to the instability between him and his father. And this instability resides in the different way they see the same things (for example, to Joe, the races are something almost magical; to Butler, they're just a game which you can't win without luck or cheating). There are a few questions I asked myself after analysing Joe's narration: 1 - How does Joe view his father? We must consider that Joe is still young and immature, he's probably 11 - 12 years old (this is based in Joe's behaviour towards several situations: the way he handles with his father drinking problem; the way he feels embarrassed in what concerns girls; the way he can't fnd words to express his feelings or to describe situations). He might be smart enough to know that something's wrong in his father's life (when he enters the bar and some guy call his "old man" a "son of a bitch"), but he is not mature enough yet to understand what it is, or he is not mature enough to accept that something is happening. 2 -How does the boy wish to view his father? The child has a romanticised view of his father. Joe admires him, he loves him, he considers him as a hero, his father is an example to follow, he wants to be like him when he grows up. He doesn't think that his father drinking is a problem; in fact, he's even more funny after a drink or two. His father is also his confident and his friend. His father, in his opinion, is perfect in every way. 3 - How does he finally have to view his father? In the end of the story, Joe understands that something was going on behind his back. He realises that his father is not as wonderful and perfect as he thought he was. Joe loses his faith in his father. The last sentence of this story ("Seems like when they get started, they don't leave a guy nothing.") shows us that Joe's faith in his father disappeared when he died. And with him, Joe's hopes and dreams. Carla Diana Cardoso, for Study of Texts - English, Translation course at ISLA Copyright by Didi Cardoso. This file is the author's own work. You may only use this file for private study, scholarship, or research. You may not reproduce it in any way without written permission from the author. |
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