“Reunion” by John Cheever is a short story about Charlie who hasn’t seen his father since his parents’ divorce. So on his way back to his mother’s house he schedules a lunch with his father. Yet Charlie’s view on his father changes when his father continually has problems controlling his bad attitude. In “Powder and “Reunion” the authors use father/son relationships, point of view and conflict to portray to the reader that almost all father and son relationships have their flaws. In the two short stories it seems as if the sons’ relationships with their father were quite different, but they also had their similarities because both of them cared for their son.
In Chapter 4 the narrator describes how his life is before he and Rafa were sent to the campo. He lived with Rafa, his mother and grandfather. He and Rafa had a good relationship with their grandfather because if they ever got in trouble with their mother he would always go easy on them by not making them go through to punishment their mother gave them. During this chapter their mother is working long hours just to take care of her children. At one point she goes into a state of shock and depression because Yuniors father told her he was coming home to see them but he never showed up.
Harry’s father is definitely most affected by the death of his wife. He displays the struggles someone goes through after the loss of their significant other. Herrick shows how Harry’s father deals with the situation by the routine of visiting his wife’s grave the “first Sunday of every month” with the boys, who “put on clean clothes and…wear shoes for the only time that week” as a sign of respect and love for their deceased mother. Harry’s father updates her on the recent events in their lives which makes him feel as if she is still there with them. Keith and Harry on the other hand, try not to notice too much that their mother is not with them.
Tracy is doing well in her school work, but has temper tantrums at home when things do not go her way. Harold was recently laid off from a job he held for over 10 years and is feeling very discouraged. His mother has loaned him money until he can find another job, but he worries about his ability to take care of his family. Shirley returned home from duty three weeks ago. She was initially very happy to see her family, but is having trouble adjusting to being back home.
The family having lived in America during the American Great Depression, it is clear that the family was ravaging in poverty and poor education. In fact, Nicole had to be assisted on how to write the letter to his father by the wife because he had no knowledge of how to write one (Mazer, 1993). In abundance desire to share his memories, Nicole found it valuable to invite some of his friends who could dine and share memories together with is his family (Mazer, 1993). Nicole valued his friends as his family, which helps the story buttress the importance of family (Mazer, 1993). According to the story, it is unfortunate that the dog found the goatskin and ate it up making it hard to build the ciramella (Mazer, 1993).
During the Simon’s (Matt and Marie’s son) birthday party, there were some conversations between Kate, Daniel and Kate, Marie; Marie told Kate to face the truth that Matt’s life was not a failure, and he love his son, his family and the farm. The most important thing that bothered Matt, however, was that Kate cannot forgive Matt and cannot understand him. Daniel also has made some progress (Page 281-282); he tells Kate to look at real world too; also, Daniel point out that Kate had put the story in a place that was too heavy. Actually, Matt did not change after being a famer. He can be a scholar; however, he just found out he like farming, too.
His parents are happy and he longs for it himself. By George rekindling his relationship with Robin and not having “been happy for 10 years” until this, Sam sees that if he betters his relationships, he can also be happy. For the whole movie, George “was trying to get [Sam] to love [him]”, and he “pulled it off”. Sam no longer feels neglected and actually feels part of the family. There is no longer a reason to be angry.
In the story, Ross specifically tells their son, Kevin that he should try not to marry beneath himself because he will end up stuck in the same situation as him. This demonstrates Jean’s life being difficult because, she constantly has to deal with her husband not caring about her and looking to other women to satisfy himself. To continue, Jean lacks proper
He felt guilty but made arrangements to have a neighbor come by and assist his mother his mother was not enthusiastic about the idea. So ray told him if Martin did not stop by he would and mow the lawn. This is a functional conflict because ray is making sure that if he cant come by to mow the lawn he has a neighbor to help out his mother instead of himself. And if worse comes to worse he would show up if he absolutely had
This differs from how Lily acts because Lily relies on others to help make her happy. One of the reasons that June does not want to marry Neil is because she does not want to admit that she might actually need him. She is afraid of letting someone know that she needs them because the last time she fell in love he left her. “Ever since Melvin Edwards backed out of your wedding all those years back, you’ve been afraid of love, refusing to take a chance” (211). August knows that June is afraid to fall in love again because the last man that she fell in love with left her.