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,
Mary does not have a high regard for hard work. She does not appreciate delicacies such as hunted Moosemeat and would rather have “‘[…] a big glass of Pepsi, with lots of ice cubes […] [a]nd a hot fudge sundae’” (14), than a meal which one gathers and hunts for with his or her own hands. Furthermore, when Mary comes to visit Marco he believes that he has a chance to rekindle the time he has lost with her; however, both have different interests and no matter how hard Marco tries, he is not able to efficiently show Mary that it is the little objects in life that have the most value. Although Mary goes on hikes with her father, catches trout and collects edible plants (10), she completes all of these tasks as if she is a prisoner “who [does] the best [she] [can] while waiting for [ her] day of release” (11). In the end, Marco realizes that “these things [take] time” (1), and “there [are] people who [prefer] to see [fish] in tanks” (27), rather than out in the wild and to his disappointment amongst these people is his daughter Mary Alicia. Marco is not able to cherish or regain the time he has lost with his daughter - each attempt he makes to do so is futile. All he can now do is “[lay] [his hand] down on his arm where hers had been” (36), in hopes of grasping on to anything he can of his lovely Mary Alicia.
In Confetti Girl the dad and his daughter don’t connect in ways the daughter and her mom used to. The daughter misses how close her and her mom were together. No matter what they were doing, they could always remain close and connected. The girl states, “Mom always had after-school projects waiting for me. ‘Can you help decorate cookies?’ she’d say. Or, ‘Go outside and pick some flowers.’ Or, ‘Fix my nails please’” (1). If they were picking flowers or baking, they were on the same page and connecting together. The daughter and her dad
On an everyday basis teens all around the world fight and disagree with their parents. In the passages Confetti Girl and Tortilla Sun this very thing is clearly demonstrated. Both stories feature two teenage girls that have lost one of their parents. They both now face the daily struggle of agreeing and relating to their remaining parent. In Confetti Girl, the narrator is constantly overlooked and out shadowed by her father’s favorite thing, books and literacy.
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.
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.
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 ...
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.
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.
A father can play many roles throughout a child’s life: a caregiver, friend, supporter, coach, protector, provider, companion, and so much more. In many situations, a father takes part in a very active position when it comes to being a positive role model who contributes to the overall well-being of the child. Such is the case for the father in the poem “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden. In this poem, readers are shown the discreet ways in which a father can love his child. On the other hand, there are also many unfortunate situations where the fathers of children are absent, or fail to treat the children with the love and respect that they undoubtedly deserve. In the contrasting poem “Like Riding a Bicycle” by George Bilgere, readers are shown how a son who was mistreated by his drunken father is affected by their past relationship many years later. Although both of these poems have fairly similar themes and literary techniques, they each focus on contradicting situations based on the various roles a father can play in a child’s life.
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.
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...
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
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.
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
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.