Joseph Bruchac's Wolf Mark

Throughout Ken’s life, his relationship with his father was distant and inconsistent. During Ken’s upbringing, his mother passed away when he was only six years old. Ken’s mother was the only family member who provided Ken with full security and pure love. She secured him with protection from his father’s cruelty. An example of this is when Ken’s father seized a tiger shark and forced Ken to touch it. Yet Ken was violently scared as he shakes his head and takes a step back while refusing his father’s demand. As a result, his father’s violence attitude emerged as he physically grabbed Ken’s foreman and pressured his hand to touch the shark. Subsequently, Ken’s mother came to the rescue and responded with a vicious slap to the father’s face (McKinney, 1999, p.24). This shows that Ken’s mother is not only known as a safeguard to Ken but she also represents a strong willed woman who opposes the ideal hegemonic masculinity. After the death of his mother, Ken was left with his abusive father as the sole parent who showed barely any form of support. A research found that children living in a single-parent household tend to obtain higher risk of abuse. Generally, single fathers are much more likely to use physical violence towards their children (Gelles, 1989). Since Ken spent most of his childhood being raised by his aggressive father. Ken narrates a negative hatred towards his father as he describes him as an irritable dangerous man who constantly displays his devil arch eyebrows and furious eyes.

Tobias Wolff’s memoir, “This Boy’s Life”, explores the idea that an individual’s actions can be altered due to the people they are exposed to. The protagonist Jack Wolff lives an impressionable life where he undergoes somewhat of a dilemma in relations to his actions, being incapable of changing for the greater good of himself. The absence of a proper male role model plays a large role on Jack’s actions, though is definitely not the only reason. Jack’s actions are influenced by Rosemary’s abusive and power craving ex-husband Roy, as well as Dwight’s violent and arrogant personality. However, Jack is also responsible for his

His mother treats him like a slave, giving him daily chores and unbelievably ruthless punishments. He has become inhuman to her as she refers to him as “It.” The only hope of survival relies on his dad, in God, or in a miracle. His story promotes the courageous human spirit and the determinate to survive.

In the story “The Ascent,” Ron Rash begins the story with vivid imagery to set the calm, yet slightly unsettling scene of a young boy playing with his imaginary friend(s). Jared initially can be perceived as the average curious boy searching for the one thing no one else could find, a missing airplane. His imagination and situational aspects led to his decisions in the story. Jared was lost not physically, but mentally; he had no one to comfortably confide in and trust. His life was not an easy one as he dealt with both peer pressure and seclusion from home and school; he only felt safe behind the barriers of his mind and the misplaced airplane. Jared’s drug addicted parents had a negative effect on Jared’s mental and physical livelihood, resulting

Unwanted How does it feel to be unwanted, even by your own dad? In the novel, Tangerine, by Edward Bloor, Paul Fisher is constantly feeling neglected by his father. As the book goes on, examples are clearly shown of how Mr. Fisher respects his older son, Erik, much more than he does Paul. Paul’s Dad’s choices made Paul feel unwanted and pushed him away from his family, friends, and soccer.

While George and I share same social aspects we also share some personal aspects with each other. Like George, I was left without a father figure in my life. George’s father and my father left around the same time in our lives, which I find particularly interesting. Our fathers left when we were between the ages of seven and ten years old. As our fathers left we were looked at as the “man of the house” in our household. This might seem like a big responsibility for young boys our age but, we established ways to make a positive result for ourselves and those affected by the situation.

As they grow, all of the life choices and parenting styles the parent commits to interfere with how the child will develop as a person. With that being said, the father of the child might abuse the mother in front of the child every night when he comes home drunk. Consequently, the child might grow up believing it was okay to hit women. On the other hand, the parents could be raising the child perfectly but what they experience at school could abolish every life lesson that the parents had put before them. As the African proverb states, “It takes a village to raise a child”. No matter who enters the child’s life for any given time, it will affect who the child will become. In the book The Other Wes Moore, both Moore boys grew up in a town filled with violence and drugs. Even though both boys’ mothers raised them properly and gave them every care in the world, the environment that they grew up in paid its toll on both boys. As the other Wes Moore’s mother found out about his dealing with drugs, the first thing she asked herself was, “Who is to blame for this” (74). All of the people that influenced Wes; Tony, the neighborhood, the school system, and Wes’s friends flooded through his mother’s mind at that very moment. “She put them all on trial in her mind,” Moore writes (75). It is not just the mother or the parents who are raising the child, it is the entire village.

Every individual comes to a point in their life in which they begin to swim away from the harbor their parents raised them in, and begin navigating their own life. Dalton Trumbo uniquely portrays the familiar concept of coming-of-age, within a passage from his novel Johnny Got His Gun, in which he depicts a son wanting to take a friend fishing instead of his father who has taken him annually during their camping trip. Trumbo gives insight into the internal turmoil that strikes when confronting ones parents about wanting to drift away from the anchor they’ve been for them. He clearly articulates his point, illustrating the flow in thought from tense to reflective using precise selection of detail, applying a shift in point of view, and naturalistic imagery.

‘Don’t worry about food and bills,’ Dad said, ‘that's for me to worry about. Okay?’” (Walls 210).

Joey R. Poole presents an intriguing story in “The Hand-Me-Downs.” Simon is a straight shooting kid that follows rules and does not ask many questions. But later in the story, the reader can tell that the violence surrounding Simon erodes his attitude. He begins to stand up to his brother and he begins to understand that he has free will. At the beginning of the story, the reader can tell that Simon is a typical innocent young kid but by the end of the story, the reader is convinced otherwise. Simon changes as the story progresses representing a dynamic character rather than a static character.

Also, after walking past a village, the son claims to have seen a little boy and begs his father if they can go back and get him. The man then says “Stop it. We can’t[,]” (McCarthy 80) and thinks that his son sees things. Again, the selfish desire to survive prevents him from helping others. He does not want to go back because he does not want to do anything that will risk their lives. The thirst for survival becomes greater than his conscience. Hence it prevents him from giving into his son. Another time this occurs is when the man and his son are robbed by a stranger. The man catches him and takes back their stuff, along with the thief’s belongings. The son begs the father to show mercy on the criminal, but the father does not care and so “they set out along the road south with the boy crying and looking back at the nude and slat-like creature standing there… Shivering and hugging himself.” (McCarthy 229).

After reading Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, many wonder why Chris Mccandless felt the need of living off the land. While reading this book, it is hard for readers not to identify with Chris’s running away from his family, (specifically his father), and authority. Many readers can think back to their teenage/younger years, and can relate to Chris’s rebelliousness towards his parents. All these actions relate to many Romantic traits, but no trait relates to how much of a nonconformist, self reliant individual Chris was. Chris’s practice of Nonconformity had a negative effect on his life, and the people that surrounded him.

Growing up in Virginia with a large family can be tough. But imagine growing up with domestic violence, yelling, and screaming. Growing up in that environment can be very stressful, which was the case for Chris McCandless. To add to the tragic situation, he found out during high school that his mother and father were not married when he was born. His life had become unfamiliar to him and he yearned to escape his parents. Influences from Emerson, Thoreau and other naturalists inspired him to walk into the wild to evade the confines of his situation. The author of Into the Wild used Chris’s connections to Thoreau to help tell McCandless’s story. The book, Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, has small connections to my own life, remarkable similarities

betrayal, and violence. His father abandoned him seeking to find a life less confrontational to a

Every person reaches a point in their lives when they must define themselves in relation to their parents. We all come through this experience differently, depending on our parents and the situation that we are in. For some people the experience comes very early in their lives, and can be a significant life changing experience. In William Faulkner’s “Barn Burning” Colonel Sartoris Snopes must decide either to stand with his father and compromise his integrity, or embrace honesty and morality and condemn his family. This is a difficult decision to make, especially for a ten year old boy that has nothing outside of what his father provides. Sarty’s decision to ultimately betray his father is dependent on his observation of Abner’s character