Sarah Vowell's Shooting Dad

In Rudy Francisco’s poem “Rifle II,” the author uses diction and irony to express resentment towards both society and himself. The overall message of the poem is clear: a criticism of the glorification of violence. However, it is harder to pin down Francisco’s exact attitude about how the glorification of violence has affected him personally. A closer examination of the language and devices he uses reveals an underlying bitterness about what society has made him into, and who he has become.

Shooting Dad, by Sarah Vowell, is a story about the author's relationship with her dad, herself, and guns. Not being a huge fan of guns, as much as her father is, she continues to live with her father in a "divided house,'' confirming that one of them is republican and another is democratic. Instead of the author starting off the story with " i am a gunsmith's daughter,'' she created a short explanation of both point of views, herself and her father, allowing the audience to have a better understanding of the situation. This , of course, is effective to the reader to capture a sense or feel into what the author is trying to express with statement as '' a home for the civil war'' or ''hunter's orange was never my color.''

Both “Arm Wrestling with My Father” and “Shooting Dad” written by Brad Manning and Sarah Vowell, respectively, portrays a damaged and rough relationship that a son and/or daughter holds with his father. Although they both find themselves struggling, they are dealing with different things, Manning is dealing with a physical bounding, while Vowell finds herself handling a more emotional and communicative type of bonding. Eventually, both characters find themselves in a mature relationship over time. The characters had similarities and also differences with their respective father. Throughout the stories, both authors dig into the relationship between child and father and how it can be shaped and changed over time.

In Sarah Vowell’s essay, Shooting Dad, there are many examples of hyperbole, but one that caught my attention was where she explains her father’s shop being a messy disaster area, a labyrinth of lathes (p.2, 7). She is implying that her father’s workshop resembles a maze, meaning that it is large and unorganized with metal and wood machines. An understatement found in this essay was when she explains how her father wants to die and she describes it in a nonchalant matter. Usually you figure people would mourn for their parents but Vowell writes it as, “When my father dies, take a wild guess what he wants done with his ashes. It requires a cannon.” He wants to take his last hunting trip on open morning. The essay also has examples of humorous tone such as, “I taped the front page of the newspaper on the refrigerator door. But there was some sort of mysterious surge in the kitchen. Somehow, that picture ended up in the trash all the way across the room (p.2, 5).” We can imply that the mysterious surge was her father and he threw the newspaper in the trash as a sign of disagreement.

She still uses the rhetorical technique of juxtaposition but she adds more techniques to it which explains her differences with her and her father. She talks about her different hobbies she has from her dad, “all he ever cared about were guns, all I ever cared about was art” (Vowells). The way the author describes her thoughts towards guns is totally different from her and her sister. In paragraphs 9-13 she writes about her attitudes toward guns and how her sister loves more than Vowell does. She uses parallelism and pathos to discuss about how Sarah dislikes the use of guns but her sister adores it. Explaining on how her own experience of guns around her house are horrible for society. Although, she does not seem to get along with her dad she does towards the end of her story talk about how her relationship towards him has changed into a positive

In Sarah Vowell’s essay she talks about her life and the role her father and guns have played in it. Being a gunsmith, her father’s life revolves around guns and he loves it. This is not a view shared by his daughter who finds that guns are constantly getting in her space. Due to this overabundance of guns and gun-loving ideas in the household and her father trying to force his own republican opinion on her, Sarah has developed a strong distaste for guns.

Few relationships are as deep as those between child and parent. While circumstance and biology can shape the exact nature of the bond, a child’s caretaker is the first to introduce them to the world. And as they grow and begin to branch out, children look to their parents as a model for how to interact with the various new situations. Through allusion, potent imagery, and nostalgic diction, Natasha Trethewey constructs an idolized image of a father guiding their child through life’s challenges only to convey the speaker’s despair when they are faced with their father’s mortality in “Mythmaker.”

“Shooting Dad” by Sarah Vowell tells the interesting story of a girl with views that oppose that of her father's. Sarah’s father, Pat, works as a gunsmith and is a massive gun enthusiast, while Sarah herself is more into music. Throughout this story, Sarah relates to the reader how passionate her and her dad are about their different hobbies and perspectives. With all of the tension in the house from the drastically different points of view, they must figure out how to coexist. Sarah and her father find their bond through the joys of cannons, which also leads Sarah to the conclusion that they are not as different as she once thought. This story goes to great lengths to show the reader that just because people have differences, does not mean that they cannot or do not have similarities as well.

Keith’s mother grew up poor and without much appropriate parental guidance, she was abused growing up and witnessed domestic violence in her home. Keith’s mother was uneducated as education was not valued in her home and always held menial, low paying jobs. Once Keith was born, his mother was unable to provide the adequate basic necessities for herself and Keith. Feeling overwhelmed and burdened by her decision, Keith was pushed aside as his mother chose a path of substance abuse and a variety of unsavory men.

Contrast is the brick and mortar of this piece. Vowell utilizes this technique to draw on the vast political, ideological, differences that lie between her and her father. He is a gun-toting, NRA-subscribing, Reagan-loving Republican, while she is an art-focused, peace-admiring, music-loving Democrat. The vast expanse that separates the two could not be more jarring, as she describes the home as “a house divided”, with the area between their two bastions of influence, the kitchen and the living room, as a “DMZ” (7). She emphasizes the stark difference between the two with ironic humor when speaking about their one “ agreement”, the constitution, while emphasizing a continued disconnect in values, “I’m partial to the First Amendment, while

Although single parenthood is on the rise in homes today, children still often have a father role in their life. It does not matter who the part is filled by: a father, uncle, older brother, grandfather, etc...; in almost all cases, those relationships between the father (figure) and child have lasting impacts on the youth the rest of their lives. In “I Wanted to Share My Father’s World,” Jimmy Carter tells the audience no matter the situation with a father, hold onto every moment.

In their recent work, Brad Manning and Sarah Vowell have written about more than one way to have a close, but different relationship with their fathers. There is has always been a belief that to get along with someone you would have normal conversations, enjoy each other’s company, or share a common interest. In the story they love their father as any other child would, but their ways of communication are not the same and are different from a common father-child relationship. Both authors use rhetorical devices as a framework for differentiating their relationships with their fathers by characterizing them.

Throughout literary history, authors have categorized mothers as nurturing, critical, and caring; works of literature characterize fathers, however, as providers who must examples for their children and embrace their protective, “fatherly” instincts. However, many works’ fathers fall short when it comes to acting the role of the ideal dad. Instead of being there for their children, they are away and play very miniscule roles in their children’s lives; instead of protecting he actually ends up hurting their kids. Thus, the paternal literary lens tries to determine whether or not the work’s father figure fits the “perfect father” archetype. This lens questions whether or not the father figure is his children’s active example, provider, and

As the father’s perspective of a home that has two daughters is not the most common parental blog subject, I am not the most gifted of writers, but this is an attempt to give a young Father’s edition of Thorny Lullaby and a view through the eyes of a man with the alluring yet challenging burden of the attentive care of two blossoming girls and an impeccable woman, which ordinarily, remain rare and hidden in blogs.

Although everyone has a father, the relationship that each person has with his or her father is different. Some are close to their fathers, while some are distant; some children adore their fathers, while other children despise them. For example, in Robert Hayden’s poem “Those Winter Sundays” Hayden writes about his regret that he did not show his love for his hardworking father sooner. In Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy,” she writes about her hatred for her brute father. Despite both authors writing on the same topic, the two pieces are remarkably different. Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” and Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays” have different themes that are assembled when the authors put their different uses of imagery, tone, and characterization together.