In the two stories, authors do thereby express a relationship with their parents and more so to their fathers during their childhood passage and as they grow up eventually. Both fathers had strong appealing love towards the child. The content will discuss and compare the fathers love to their young ones.
In the story Arm Wrestling with My Father by Manning, the narrator express their love as a physical relationship with his father. His father took the time to coach him after the match only to make him do better in the next game. His father had the good relation to him and they could strongly hug each other and make fun of battling to grasp the breath. The narrator says early times ago his father could not help him to write but only could only show him the love which he was assuming was there. Since his father did not write any card to him as her mother did, he says to communicate with his father was purely physical. They were not even handshaking to one another but hugging. This is why they were grappling arm against arm as a sign of communicating to get ready for practice or battle. Manning the narrator each time they could engage in battle with his father he was amicably defeated. According to the narrator Manning, his father did not know lacrosse but still could win the battle as he says “my greatest efforts could not slow it down”. As the time went by, his father gets older and starts been weak as compared to the time the narrator was younger and Manning starts being stronger. Here came another time when both of them had a battle challenge who will win and who will lose. But Manning was stronger this time around and could not accept see him defeat his father so he felt the unexpected feeling of sorry to him after he had pushed his left and right arms to the carpet. He could not withstand losing the love of his father as he remembers his father used to carry him past. Therefore, if he overthrows him who will be carrying him but assumed he has a responsibility to take in years to come. The narrator is faced with difficult questions about overpowering his father in the house since his father’s arms were the only security to the family. The narrator is faced with two visions about his family, one about his mother and the other one about his father collapsing. The narrator wanted to offer his dad a handshake but his father offered a hug in which he told him that he loved him so much. This is the way they used to communicate with his father.
Shooting Dad
is a novel written by Sarah Vowell who expressed a relationship with her father and her as she is the narrator. In the story, it is clear that Vowell started opposing her father long time in terms of politics, his work, and even his interests each time. Their house was full of differences in terms of their stands and wishes. The narrator starts by drawing on how they were living in their house. No one wanted to convey with the other except on Constitution but they were favored differently also. His father was a skilled gunsmith and this was a challenge and a factor that made the narrator differ with his father still. She did not like guns, unlike her dad who not only liked but also cared for and made them. In the house, they had even declared themselves as dictators. The narrator and her twin sister Amy they once used a gun to learn how to shoot as it was their fathers wish for them to do. Her sister loved her father so much that the narrator did. As the narrator daydreamt having a pistol and shoot in the practice and later decide that “Guns: Not For Me. Luckily”. Narrator’s parents were born in the family where there was no freedom in choosing what one liked and therefore, her father left them to do what her sister and he wanted. This made her stop going to hunt with her father and remain in the house to contact home activities leaving her twin sister to accompany their father. Narrator’s father says to be burnt after he dies by her daughter Vowell. He gives directions on how to be done after his death and be taken to the mountain.
Comparing these two stories both fathers love their children. In the first scenario of Arm Wrestling with My Father, Manning is much loved by his father as depicted by the story he gives. The moments they had hugging each other all the time and coaching he was being coached by his father before and after the game was a show of love. The physical communication apart from the writings showed the more closely the narrator’s father wanted to be with his son, Manning. The prolonged hug intact they had the night prior the narrator to return to the college for the exam was a great love sign for his father. It is evidenced while the narrator was on the flight going back to do his last college exams. Again both parents of the narrator they loved him a lot as it was seen in the story that his mother also hugged him and still was sending written cards to him. The fact that the narrator did not want to overpower his father was a sign of respect and lots of love for him. Unlike the love the Manning parents had to him, in the second story of Shooting Dad by Vowell, the narrator was loved by her parents but not as much as in the first story. Vowell’s parents had offered her freedom to do want she wanted. She did not like what her father had a specialist in and therefore in their house, they argue almost to everything. Her twin sister was the one who could be seen liking almost what her father liked. They could go and hunt together with her leaving the narrator at home doing the activities she liked in the house. Finally, the narrator was directed by her father on what to do after his death. In this house, it seemed like there was limited love between parents and the narrator as compared to the Manning story.
To conclude, the two stories are narrated to show how parents’ versus child relationship is depicted on both of them. As it was discussed above the story of Manning had a lot of loving moments between parents and their son as compared to the story of Vowell.
Work cited
Vowell, Sarah. "Shooting Dad." Seeing and Writing 2: 231-237.
