Liana Monique San Lorenzo | BSN3-2

A Conversation with My Father

1. What is the story behind the main story in Paleys The story was about a young writer who has an 86 year old father who is terminally ill. Her father asked her to write a short story, the way his favorite writers write. Although she did not write in such a way, she tried to write one to please her father, which brings them to a conversation about realities. 2. Explain the main conflict of the narrator. The main conflict in the story was about the narrator and her father, who cant seem to agree on how the story was written or how it ended. It revolves around the view of her father as life having a tragic end as part of the reality they live in and how his daughter view life with hope and optimism; a world full of opportunities and possibilities. They cannot see eye to eye in the following issue, since the drug addict mother was the writers creation and she didnt want her father to change how it ended. Her father wanted her to face his inevitable death, and the young writer, still, was filled of expectation for greater possibilities. According to him, as a writer, his daughter doesnt recognize tragedy. 3. Characterize the father as shown in his statements a. It so happens that Im not going out this evening Her father is a bit pushy. He wants her to start over, to grasp what he has been telling her. b. How long will it be Tragedy, you, too. How long will you look it in the face? He is a realist. He prefers to face reality, like how he prefers facts rather than people sitting on trees talking senselessly. He is telling her that soon, hell die and shell have to face that. c. For Godsake, doesnt anyone in your stories get married? Doesnt anyone have the time to run down to the city hall before they jump to bed? It can be seen in this statement that he is a conservative kind of person who follows customs and traditions. A person who values morals and gives marriage a high importance. d. Poor girl, born in the time of fools, to live among fools! He thinks that the current generation is somewhat astray from what is supposedly the norm. 4. What is the satirical element added to the story One satirical element is that of the drug addicted mother. She is a drug addict who escapes her death and becomes an ex junkie who works at a community clinic, miraculously. 5. Do the fathers reactions to his daughters story cohere or not? Explain your answer. It somehow coheres with the story though what he is trying to say is different from the actual story his daughter wrote. It finds it connection with the endings. He could somehow relate the end of his life, which he highly think as tragic, to the tragic end of the addict woman, who is left sick and alone. He thinks that in reality, there is a tragic end and the only way for his daughter to realize it is to acknowledge its existence. 6. How would you classify this short story-story of character? Story of plot? Plotless story? Story of local color? Story of atmosphere? Thematic story? Defend your answer. It is a story of character. It shows how people act towards things they do not want to believe, how people view life and how they differ. The characters, the writer and her father, are different in a lot of things. Though it is a short story, bot characters were given a very clear identity. Their differences, preferences and opinions are clearly seen.