Killer Alligators, Lessons, And Manhood. Pearl River was swimming with Alligators, fish that could swallow a person whole, and full of suspense in Harrison Scott Key’s memoir “My Dad Tried to Kill Me with an Alligator”. Through characterization, setting, and imagery, Key details the dangers of that frightening day in 1987 and how it provided the main character, referred to as Fat-Tart, significant life lessons. The experience from that day is why he’s able to see those lessons and recognize the meaning of being a man. Characterization plays an important part in the story, especially with Fat-Tart. He starts out as a book loving boy with a fearless brother, both who are opposites of each other. “Bird jumped in and went to the bottom, over and over, my big brother, already more a man …show more content…
His brother Bird jumped into an alligator-filled river despite the potential risks, while he was too apprehensive to follow. “He wouldn’t read a book, but he’d beat the hell out of somebody who did, if you asked him nicely” (Key 6) is another example of how Bird and Fat-Tart are unalike since Fat-Tart doesn’t seem like one to pick a fight, and is mainly interested in “the life of the mind, writing poems, reading about the origins of the Latin Vulgate, plowing through science fiction stories about Captain Nemo in his Nautilus” (Key 2). One brother represents being a man from his bravery and risk-taking nature, while the other is drawn to literature and more understandably cowardly. Additionally, Fat-Tart is different from his dad, who he views as rash and foolish at the beginning of the story. “I sort of pitied him, or maybe what I felt was embarrassment, that this was the man who made me, this loud and reckless and ignorant man who did not read books” (Key 6) gives Fat-Tart’s perspective on his dad, who he believes is careless and not the