My Father\'s Tears - Grade: A PDF

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An analysis of My Father's Tears by John Updike. ...

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Marc Kirchner ENG 201 Professor Rass 29 April 2018 Looking at Father-Son Relationships An Analysis of “My Father’s Tears” by John Updike What is your relationship with your father like? Is it an open one? Do you allow yourself to cry in front of him? The kind of relationship we have with any parent is defined by the years we spend connecting with them as they raise us. In “My Father’s Tears”, the reader gets an inside view into the narrator’s relationship with his father and his father-in-law. Both demonstrate different types of father-son relationships while displaying similarities to Updike’s own personal life. While reading, this made me more appreciative of the relationship I have with my own father, because as the story shows, not everyone has the same experience. The first father-son relationship shown in “My Father’s Tears” occurs in the beginning of the story between Jim and his biological father. In the interaction, Jim is leaving to go back to college and it is the first time he sees his father cry. He says, “it shocked me—threw me off track, as it were—to see that my father’s eyes, as he shook my hand goodbye, glittered with tears” (Updike 1). Jim’s relationship with his father is one built on respect out of all of the years they have spent together. And now, the father is sad to see his son go because he knows he is never truly coming back. Jim says, “I was going somewhere, and he was seeing me go” (Updike 1). Because, to Jim, he is starting his life and a whole new experience. But, to his father, Jim has been his life and now he has to see him go. This heartfelt scene perfectly depicts what a parent experiences when their child leaves home. Furthermore, when the father dies, Jim has a whole new appreciation for his him. While at his high school reunion, he sees how many of his old classmates mention his name and realizes how much influence his father had. When reflecting on his death, he says, “Though I saw the opportunity, and the rightness of it, I don’t believe I did. My father’s tears had used up mine” (Updike 12). This final statement from the narrator signifies the respect he had for his father and the type of relationship they had. It is in that moment he truly appreciates him and brings the story full circle. Another father-son relationship demonstrated in “My Father’s Tears” is between Jim and his ex-wife Deb’s father. This father-in-law to son relationship varies vastly from the relationship

Jim had with his own father. Jim found himself to be more irritated with Deb’s father, even mentioning how “A little silence during his nap does not seem, now, too much to ask, though at the time it irritated me” (Updike 6). Jim says this after Deb’s father dies and it also proves how his perspective of the father changed after he died. During this time, Jim was doing some reflection and realized a lot of what he found annoying about Deb’s father, did not seem so bad now that he was gone. He even says, “It is easy to love people in memory; the hard trick is to love them when they are there, in front of you.” (Updike 6). Before, Jim disagreed with Deb’s father’s religious beliefs, was annoyed with his demands during the summer, but he overall loved him. However, the point Updike makes here is how often people find a new-found appreciation and respect for others after they die, ergo Jim and his father-in-law. While reading “My Father’s Tears” and comparing it to the small biography about John Updike, it was easy to draw some parallels between the story and John’s own life. The main similarity between John and Jim is that both of them remarried. Both had children with their first wives and then remarried later in life. I wonder if the reasoning for why he remarried is similar to that of Jim. In the story, essentially Jim and his wife come from different worlds. In the end, he ends up with someone who understands his home life in Pennsylvania more. Updike’s first wife lived with him in England and his second wife died with him in Massachusetts after living there for 30 years. Therefore, I wonder, did Updike remarry for the same reasons his narrator did? Additionally, if those similarities exist, how many other parallels are there between Jim and John? After reading “My Father’s Tears”, I reflected on the relationship I have with my own father. Unlike the narrator, I have seen my father cry. Although certainly not a frequent occasion, it has happened before. Over the years, the way I see my father has changed. As I get older, I understand more why he does certain things the way he does and why he had done other things in the past. In addition, with age, me and my father have also gotten closer. When I was much younger, we would spend a lot of quality time together. However, in my adolescent years, we became more distant. It definitely had to do with both of us. I was figuring out who I was and when I realized I was gay, it was something we both had to deal with. But, now I am twenty years old and happy to say I feel closer to my father than I ever have. In fact, if anything this story has reinforced the fact that I should always be appreciative of who my father is and what he has done in his life.

Overall, “My Father’s Tears” by John Updike, was an enjoyable short story. Analyzing the different relationships between Jim and his two fathers made me think. The story made me reflect on the relationship I have with my own father and reminds me to appreciate and be there for him. We never know how much time we have left with the ones we love and this story was a reminder of that. Word Count: 994 Works Cited Updike, John. “My Father’s Tears.” The New Yorker. Web. 27 February 2006....