October 15th, 2012
English 1010 - 6th period
Brown
Shooting Dad Analysis
The short story written by Sarah Vowell called Shooting Dad is a story of a father and a daughter and their polar opposite personalities. They have little to nothing in common. Her and her father do not usually get along, as they agree on very little. She is a democrat, while her father is a republican. Her dad has an obsession with guns, and she detests them. There is a very obvious split in the family that the girl lives in and it seems as if she has nothing in common with anyone she lives with, not even her own twin sister.
The girl is very artistic minded. She finds joy in nature and is very unique. She describes her father, however, to be “simple minded and stubborn.” His passion lies with guns. That is what he does to feel the void of happiness.
At the end of the story, the daughter realizes that her and her father, even though they seemingly are nothing alike, they have a lot in common. She decided one day to oblige him and go watch him do what he loved and shoot cannons. While she was there, although totally not interested in the gunman work present, she learned to accept her dad's love for guns. Once she was able to accept this idea, her eyes were open. She realized that in all actuality, her and her father were just alike. They were both artistic. Her, in the arts of nature and the world and her father was artistic in his craftsmanship. This realization helped the girl to accept her father and realize that their seemingly differences were truly similar even if she might not have originally realized this.
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
War is not only causes physical injuries, but emotional ones as well. Throughout history, soldiers returning from war have acquired emotional damage after enduring to the harsh conditions of combat. They suffer from illnesses such as PTSD or Post Traumatic Stress disorder, a disorder in which traumatizing experiences from the past still affect an individual to which they are unlike themselves anymore. Along with PTSD they suffer from moral injury, the pain that results from damage to a person's moral foundation. In All Quiet on The Western Front By Erich Maria Remarque and Thomas Hardy's’ “The Man He Killed” characters struggles with the emotional effects of war. Despite the internal struggle faced by Paul and the speaker from the poem, both…
- 868 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
After her sickness, her mother seemed to be embarrassed of her daughter, even though she loved her dearly. She was intelligent, but preferred to stay alone, so she regularly skipped school to go to museums. She loved to study paintings and photos, looking at the details in every work.…
- 476 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Father is concerned about the drinking and also about the mother allowing the daughter to drink. Mother and daughter report having a close relationship, and mother and father report being distant. Mother and daughter believe the father uses them as trophies. Daughter expresses having a good relationship with her mother, but that her father does not know her or have any idea of who she is and what she wants. Father states he expresses his love by providing for his family.…
- 748 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
Sarah Vowell in an excerpt from a radio essay read on air entitled, “Shooting Dad” (1997) comically yet decisively reveals that although she and her father are extremely different, they are still family and actually share some similarities. Throughout the essay, she uses different forms of literary devices like juxtaposition, flashback, and description to explain the differences and similarities between her father and herself. .…
- 682 Words
- 3 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
The article “Was My Father the Reason JFK Got Shot?” explain how Sophie Yarborough became curious of her father’s political career. She decided to do a bunch of research of find out information herself.…
- 926 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
The story of “The Daughter” by Enskine Caldwell, is a conflicting tale where things occur in contrast to what the reader would want to happen. It is clear that the father shows no signs of empathy, has maniacal reasoning, and is completely disconnected to the magnitude of his actions, and because of these reasons, it is clear that the father should face the wrath of the town he provoked through his terrible…
- 529 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
The poem “A Story” written be Li- Young Lee conveys the complex father and son relationship showing their connection through literary devices while the son is trying to get his father to tell another story.…
- 484 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
An example of an emotional moment in her short story “Always Strange” is when the daughter and the father are having a conversation…
- 261 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Both essays, “The Inheritance of Tools” and “Shooting Dad” are concerned with the subject of a relationship between father and child. In Sanders’ piece, the father-son relationship is very positive and centered around a shared interest in carpentry. In Vowell’s piece, the father-daughter relationship described is more negative and centered around a disagreement between the father and his daughter. It is significant that both essays end with the idea of death of the father. This ending will show the father-child the relationship most by looking at how the child reacts to the idea of their father dying. In both essays you can see how much the child loves and respects their father no matter what differences they may have had.…
- 307 Words
- 1 Page
Satisfactory Essays -
This story exemplifies a young boy’s growth in moral education, as well as, his realization that there are consequences for his actions. Wright uses the title to foreshadow the bildungsroman theme in the story. Although the story strongly exemplifies a coming-of-age narrative, it also portrays a sort of coming-of-(r)age. Dave, the main character, is exhausted with society treating him like a child. “One of these day he was going to get a gun and practice shooting, then they couldn’t talk to him as though he were a little boy.”(1062) He believes that by purchasing a gun than he will be respected as a man. “Could kill a man with a gun like this. Kill anybody, black or white. And if I were holding his gun in his hand nobody could run over him; they would have to respect him.” (1065) After purchasing the gun, he hides it from his mother and lies to her about the gun’s whereabouts. This exemplifies only a fraction of his childish behavior. Dave then carries the gun with him as he goes to work for Mr. Hawkins in the field. While playing with the dangerous weapon, he fires the gun and it wounds one of Mr. Hawkins’s mules. When Mr. Hawkins learns about what Dave has done, he approaches Dave with an agreement on how Dave may repay him for killing his mule. However, Dave continues to feels that he is not considered as an equal to the adults. Later at night, Dave decides to carry his gun to…
- 1161 Words
- 5 Pages
Better Essays -
Towards the end of the poem, the daughter started to progressively forgive her financially negligent and emotionally abusive father. By the end of the poem, the daughter evenly puts the blame on both parents when she says “you were each other’s bad bargain, not mine”. Although the majority of the complications came from the father, the narrator concluded that those problems must be kept between the mother and father because as a child, she should not be left to stress about their grown-up issues on her own. At the end, the daughter asked what she was even collecting. She decisively accepted that she will not get anywhere in life by dwelling over a situation that cannot be mended, so she ended up letting go of the past she had with her deceased…
- 147 Words
- 1 Page
Good Essays -
In Vowell’s opening statement, she refers to her house as being “house divided” and what she means is that one of her parents is a Democrat and the other parent is a Republican. On Election Day if you were to drive by her house you would see two different campaign signs in the front yard telling you to vote for two different people because each parent is from a different political party. In paragraph 12, Vowell’s father said it was fine that his daughter wanted nothing to do with guns because he didn’t want to control her life or force her to do anything she didn’t want to do and because he could still go hunting with his other daughter. Vowell describes her father’s family as very sarcastic and doesn’t really respect them or think to highly of them, which kind of goes a long with how she feels about her father’s political views because she doesn’t agree with any of them all because she is from the opposite political party. Vowell’s main purpose of writing this, to me, was to prove that her view on political parties is right and that her father’s is wrong. She portrays her father as a man who knows nothing and is going nowhere in life all because of the person he is going to be voting for. I think Vowell’s final sentence was written to show that she and her father are slowly starting to understand each other and listen to each other’s thoughts more often. I thought it was a satisfying conclusion because throughout the entire story she makes it sound like she hates her father and will never respect him or listen to anything he says but then at the end she does a good job and makes it clear that she understands and loves her father. Another way that Vowell makes her father seem like a terrible person is that she makes it sound like he likes her sister a lot more than her and that he only hangs out with her sister because they have more in common so she never gets to do anything with her own father. In the story Vowell says…
- 408 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
The theme of the story is that people can be happy even though living a tough and painful life. The theme is symbolic for the author. As a child he probably had to learn a lot of things on his own without the help of both…
- 715 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
On the surface of “Shooting Dad”, author Sarah Vowell offers a reminiscent look at the vast differences between her personality and that of her gunsmith father. “Dad and I started bickering in earnest when I was fourteen, after the 1984 Democratic National Convention.” (Page 171). As the essay progresses, the subtle commonalities become more apparent. Vowell’s evocative recount of how she came to realize that she and her father had more in common than she’d always believed is a story that readers can relate to. Vowell’s “Shooting Dad” is a triumphant example of the challenging transition into adulthood from the rebellion and conflict of adolescence.…
- 385 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
In the short story by Itabari Njeri called "Life with Father". The daughter gives details of the major issues her father had. In the following I will explain the possible cause in which made the father act the way he did. Njeri's father was a violent person; she wanted nothing to do with him. The two off them did not have a close relationship, due to his violent acts. Although he did have a good side about him, he was a very educated man and an exceptional teacher. He had plenty of degrees. Unfortunately his family was affected by his domestic violence.…
- 288 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays