These Common Themes

Go Tell it On the Mountain
by James Baldwin

Although my previous blogpost was about abusive father-son relationships, I have encountered yet another book with the same relationship embedded into the story. The father-son relationship in Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin is not a relationship that involves abuse to alcohol and excessive drinking, rather it deals with opprobrious preacher who expects the very best of his family, who beats his two sons and has no respect for his wife. The protagonist, John, talks of this sin he is constantly committing, yet I cannot tell what this sin is since he gives no mention of it in the story other than to say that he is committing it. Is it disobedience to his father, since his father is such a strict authoritative figure. His father, being a preacher, is of the belief that anyone who does not attend church and does not have faith in Jesus is doomed for eternity. As maturity and age afflict John, the realization of how much he loathes his father and all the hatred he has stored up for him over the years also is brought upon him.

John feels such abhorrence towards his father since his father has been abusive their whole lives; this cold, menacing embodiment of what John envisions as Satan. Since John loathes his father to such a degree, and since John's father is a preacher, John therefore associates the Church with his father and his heart hardens to the idea of Church, becoming a preacher, and following in his father's footsteps. The thought of such things repels him, almost makes him nauseous, for when people associate people that we dislike with certain things, such as church in this case, we are immediately revolted by those things as well.

Since I previously spoke about father-son relationships in my blogpost preceding this one, I ams becoming more familiar with them. What is it about these relationships that compels writers to write about them so frequently? I believe that father figures, or strong male figures, make a colossal impression on boys, especially when they're at a young age. This relationship is one I can only guess at, since there was such a vast number of female figures in my life to model myself after or to be repelled by, I can hardly keep count. But something about the male to male relationship seems all the more significant, seems to shape the lives of young men so much more than females and young women. Boys will love their mothers, yes, but it is their fathers they want to develop into, their fathers they want to model themselves after. Which is why I think having a weak father figure, or a male figure you despise, has all the more affect on who you are as a person and your likes and dislikes, such as John and his animosity towards the Church.

An Ambiguous Love

Angela's Ashes
by Frank McCourt

Over the summer, I reread one of my all-time favorites; Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt. To say I have read this book too often is quite an understatement. For a small period of time, I was completely infatuated with it; the book itself, the characters within it, and the research that relates to it. This summer I decided to have my semi-annual re-read of the book, partially just so I could venture into Frank McCourt's childhood once more, and also in search of some deeper meaning that lay within the book that I may have not previously uncovered. The memoir essentially highlights the events that took place in Frank McCourt's childhood, from ages approximately 3 to 19. The McCourts originally live in Brooklyn, their family consisting of Frank, the eldest, Malachy, who is a year younger, and their mother and father. The McCourts are impoverished and live in a constant state of need for most of Frank's childhood and young adult life. This is mostly due to their drunken father, who is rarely employed and drinks the wages and dole money when he is. The McCourt family moves back to Ireland after the death of Margaret, the only daughter borne to Angela Sheenan. The death of the beautiful baby Margaret caused even more woes and sorrow to seep into the McCourt family, and after the deaths of the two twins Oliver and Eugene, also borne to Angela, yet in Ireland, the family sunk into a deeper heartache.

One of the many aspects of Frank's life that he struggles to come to terms with over his adolescent years  is his father, and how to act towards him. One part of his father is loving and knowledgable, a part that tells stories of Irish legends and cares for his sons. The part that guides them in their studies, drinks tea, and encourages Frank to take dancing lessons just for his mother's sake, even though Frank dreads them. This is the sober part of Frank McCourt's father, the part that talks and laughs with their mother, and the raging drunken fights that the two of them have do not prevail upon the house as they so often do at nighttime. When Frank's father is drunk, he wakes the boys out of their damp, freezing slumber and makes them stand, and promise to die for Ireland. Yet, Frank's father is never aggressive, never uses physical violence as a way of demonstrating his power in the household. He is always loving, kind, and patient with his boys. But even as I sit here writing how he was a good father, despite his drunken ways, I feel as if I'm lying to you, the readers. Malachy McCourt Senior never kept a job for more then 3 weeks, and drank all the wages that were supposed to help support the family, to help them survive. For the first 20 or so years of Frank McCourt's life, he scraped up what food him and his family could muster, and suffered through cold winters without much clothing. Is this loving your family? Malachy McCourt Senior leaves the family in Limerick, Ireland so as that he can go to England and try and find work there, to help with the war effort. There, too, Frank McCourt's father drank all the money that came to his hands. He left his family alone to suffer the hardships of poverty in Ireland. So how does one come to terms with such a father, and the life he put them through, enough to write a memoir about all the misfortunes and afflictions that came upon you, mostly due to him? Yet you know, deep down inside you, that you love him with all your heart? To have dealt with something such as this would be more than I could ever bear, and maybe Frank McCourt never did indeed come to terms with his father's ways and the trauma he put their family through. Maybe he still feels bitter, remorseful at the tattered remains of what could have been a loving family.