Through the Pain

In her short story “The Last Day in the Field” Gordon portrays Aleck as the typical elderly gentleman, whose leg due to age begins to pain. Even with his leg pain, on the last day of the hunting season, Aleck goes hunting with Joe, a younger gentleman, whom Aleck feels compelled to treat as a son. Throughout the hunt the knowledge Aleck gives to Joe is not as valuable as the life lessons he is unintentionally teaching through his actions. In “the Last Day in the Field”, Caroline Gordon uses language to reveal her natural tone about relationships.

Gordon chooses to portray Aleck as a father figure to Joe. Early on the relationship between Aleck and Joe becomes clear, Joe naturally looks up to and respects Aleck. Joe is introduced as “Joe Thomas, the boy that owned them”, the fact that Aleck calls Joe a ‘boy’ shows that Aleck looks at Joe like his own child. Joe is not seen as a neighbor, but a son to Joe. (Gordon 97). Gordon also says when Joe comes “home from the hardware store he would change his clothes and then come down the back way and [they] would stand there watching the dogs and wondering how they would work” the way that a father and son might stand together (Gordon 97). They almost seem to return to days of school when Aleck wakes Joe up for hunting because Aleck knows “which room Joe’s was. The window was open and [Aleck] could hear [Joe] stirring. [Aleck] went up and stuck [his] head in”, Aleck obviously is confident enough in his relationship with Joe to do so (Gordon 97). Aleck knows his way around Joe’s as well as if were his own childhood home. Additionally, Aleck takes on the role of the father when he makes sure that he has breakfast ready for them before they go. The relationship between them is also evident...

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... By gaining a deeper understanding of the story and looking at the language used the message is clear; that a role model such as a father figure does not have to be a biological father to be a father in the heart. It also teaches an important lesson of respecting and listening to elders because they can teach you invaluable lessons. Today people become so dependent on technology that they fail to notice what is about them, even if it is right in front of them.

Works Cited

Cowan, Louise. “Aleck Maury, Epic Hero and Pilgrim.” Short Story Critism. Detroit: Gale Research Inc 1994.124-133. Print.

Gordon, Caroline. “The Last Day in the Field.” The Collected Stories of Caroline Gordon. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux 2009. 96-104. Print.

Rocks, James E. “The Short Fiction of Caroline Gordon.” Short Story Critism. Detroit: Gale Research Inc 1994. 116-124. Print.