Mark Slouka, Crossing
Mark Slouka, Crossing
A strong and trustful father-son relationship, I suppose, is any father’s greatest wish. But how do you get such a close relationship that binds the father and son faithfully together? With such a close relationship to each other, you will, when you turn into a grown-up man, really appreciate the family bond, and might have the desire to pass it on, to your own son. That is one of the main themes in Mark Slouka’s short story “Crossing”, where you gain an insight into a father in constant search of the role as a brave and courageous father. The father in “Crossing” takes his son on an extremely challenging trip that includes fording an enormously strong river. The father and son face such dangerous experiences that we are not sure whether the father’s wish for his son to become more grown-up comes true or not.
The short story is written in a 3. Person narrator. We are giving an insight of the thoughts of an unhappy father due to the line: “(…) and he hadn’t been happy for a while.”1 During the short story we are only introduced to the thoughts and ideas of the father, which narrows our knowledge down to only hearing the story from one aspect, the father’s. On the one hand it makes the story much more simpler, with only one point of view, but on the other hand it differentiates the father’s feelings and thoughts, thus we get really close to the father by seeing everything through his eyes. According to the father these dangerous adventures will make the son and him friends: “He and his son would be friends. Nothing mattered more. ”2 In this sentence the narrator makes it clear to us that the father desperately wants for the son and him to be friends more than anything else. But because of the absence of the boy’s thoughts, we do not know if the boy feels the same way. The only thing we know about the boy is that he is a small boy: “He looked over the miniature jeans (…) the hiking boots dangling off the floor.”3 Due to this sentence and
A strong and trustful father-son relationship, I suppose, is any father’s greatest wish. But how do you get such a close relationship that binds the father and son faithfully together? With such a close relationship to each other, you will, when you turn into a grown-up man, really appreciate the family bond, and might have the desire to pass it on, to your own son. That is one of the main themes in Mark Slouka’s short story “Crossing”, where you gain an insight into a father in constant search of the role as a brave and courageous father. The father in “Crossing” takes his son on an extremely challenging trip that includes fording an enormously strong river. The father and son face such dangerous experiences that we are not sure whether the father’s wish for his son to become more grown-up comes true or not.
The short story is written in a 3. Person narrator. We are giving an insight of the thoughts of an unhappy father due to the line: “(…) and he hadn’t been happy for a while.”1 During the short story we are only introduced to the thoughts and ideas of the father, which narrows our knowledge down to only hearing the story from one aspect, the father’s. On the one hand it makes the story much more simpler, with only one point of view, but on the other hand it differentiates the father’s feelings and thoughts, thus we get really close to the father by seeing everything through his eyes. According to the father these dangerous adventures will make the son and him friends: “He and his son would be friends. Nothing mattered more. ”2 In this sentence the narrator makes it clear to us that the father desperately wants for the son and him to be friends more than anything else. But because of the absence of the boy’s thoughts, we do not know if the boy feels the same way. The only thing we know about the boy is that he is a small boy: “He looked over the miniature jeans (…) the hiking boots dangling off the floor.”3 Due to this sentence and