Observations and Questions Charlie, the story's narrator,

Last updated: 7/6/2022

Observations and Questions Charlie, the story's narrator, could be on college break and traveling from "grandmother's in the Adirondacks to a cottage on the Cape that [his] mother had rented." He is financially secure. His father is a member of a club "in the Sixties," an upscale part of Manhattan. If the "have-nots" have a tough road, maybe so do the "haves." Tillie Olsen's "I Stand Here Ironing" creates a vivid picture of what societal and economic constraints can produce in persons from poor communities. Maybe Cheever's story creates an equally dismal picture for a person of the upper class. How can a rich man like Charlie's father be a "victim" of his society? Maybe a person does follow in a parent's footsteps despite oneself; avoiding a fate mapped out by genetics takes a Herculean effort. Upon seeing his father at a distance for the first time in three years, Charlie says, "[H]e was my flesh and blood, my future and my doom Charlie suspects he himself will grow to be like his father. Can Charlie escape his father's fate? When Charlie says that his father is "my flesh and blood, my future and my doom," does Charlie sound a little overly dramatic? Can we trust him as he narrates what happens during this reunion? Is he less generous in his descriptions of his father than he might be if he were more fully mature? Can Charlie appreciate all that his father has gone through? If Charlie sees a future, maybe his father glimpses his own past. Maybe Charlie reminds his father of the father's own youth, and the father is unsettled and ashamed because Charlie is an embarrassment in the father's (or in society's) eyes-a sheltered mama's boy. Becoming a bully, the old man suppresses his own overly sensitive nature. Charlie's father might be jealous of Charlie, who has had everything good gifted to him. The father is pugnacious. Perhaps he has had to fight for everything he has. The father could both love and resent his child, producing in the father, anticipating and during the "reunion," aberrant behavior. At first, the son seems to admire his father. What is the attraction? Does it last? The father might just be bored with everything. Maybe he is genuinely brilliant and tired of trying to find company who can appreciate his wit. Consider analyzing his displays of advanced knowledge. He is even funny in places, though others miss his jokes, dark though the jokes may be. Is it noteworthy that his father "cross-questioned [Charlie] about the baseball season"? Is the father, or even Charlie, sure of his own sexuality? The "big shot" father might take especial pleasure in trying to "get a rise" out of waiters and newsstand workers. What kind of person belittles or berates workers in the service industry?