500 Days Of Summer Literary Analysis

In the movie 500 Days of Summer, there is a montage scene that splits the screen in two, contrasting Tom’s expectations for how he will talk to his love Summer in his ideal world, and the reality of how he finds himself unable to speak to her. Although his silence indicates a misleading aloofness, his shown anxiety and ideal image of talking to Summer show his love. In the same way, “A Story” by Li-Young Lee contrasts the silence of one father in the face of being asked to tell a story (which indicates aloofness) to the father’s actual internal anxieties and ideal desire to please his son (which shows love). Through the use of third person limited point of view and the contrast between the ideal and reality, Lee portrays the complex relationship

The irony presented in the idea that “in a room full of books in a room full of stories” the father cannot recall a single story when asked concedes the point that outwardly it seems callous and uncaring that the father does not tell a new story to his eager and prompting son, yet the absurdity shows that the father does not tell a new story merely out of inability (given his inability to take advantage of such abundant story resources), and not lack of care or love. While the father’s thoughts reveal his desire to tell “the alligator story...the angel story… the spider story”, his “silence” provides a stark contrast to those ideal desires. The “boy’s supplications” juxtaposed with the father’s nearly deafening “silence” provides a stark contrast between the imperfect and the perfect that mirrors the function of the father and son’s relationship. Even while the father expresses one ideal, his love shown through internal thoughts speaks contrary to that

The poem insinuates that a majority of the father’s anxiety stems from the fact he believes his son can only process love through the telling of a story, evident by the fact the void created by lack of story telling is instead filled with the father’s future fears of his son inevitably leaving his house without ever acquiring the skill or desire to listen to his father. Even though the father’s silence shows a lack of thought externally, the use of hypothetical future quotes and scenes between himself and his son show the nuanced and deep thought process of the father that acts as a show of love in place of a conventional story. The father’s evident frustration in the hypothetical interaction where he aims to decide whether he is “a god that should never disappoint” or whether his son is “a god” that is worthy of ignoring him shows the reality of the father’s care for his son by implying that the father has mentally turned over the relationship many times in his head, which is enough times to consider multiple points of view about who should be labeled the superior “god” in the relationship. The turn to hypothetical extremes, shown by the fact the father not only worries about his lack of stories but also the endpoint of who in the relationship should be held most accountable for a