John Cheever "Reunion

Narrator's in stories are the characters, if they happen to be characters that influence reader's the most. The narrator lays out all the information to us as they see it and they tell the story how they want it to be heard. Although they are telling the story from their point of view, it is our job as readers to interpret, that what they are telling us is fair an just. Some narrator's often won't tell the whole story, but just what they want you to hear. In John Cheever's, Reunion the narrator, Charlie is a narrator that cannot be trusted. He is very critical and unfair to his father and wants the reader to think that his father is a failure, not only as a father, but as a person in general.

Charlie begins to influence us early in the story, when he subtly points out that his father's secretary wrote him to tell him where they would meet, implying maybe that his father is treating Charlie like a client of his. He also refers to his father as his "future and his doom" Cheever pg.272 . So before we even meet his father Charlie has depicted him as a failure and ultimately himself to be a failure. Upon meeting Charlie's father we learn that he is a successful businessman in New York and is probably a very busy man, so perhaps this is why he had his secretary contact Charlie. The first thing Charlie's father says to him is, "Hi boy, I'd like to take you to my club, but it's in the sixties and if you have to catch an early train I guess we'd better get something to eat around here." Cheever pg.272. If Charlie sees himself growing up to be something like his father, being successful and belonging to a private club of some kind can hardly be described as doomed.

As Charlie and his father go from restaurant to restaurant, if you were to side with Charlie about his father's behavior and actions you would think that his father is a very loud, obnoxious, and rude person. The first restaurant they go to is empty. In an empty restaurant you would think that...