The parental influence overflows into each character’s desire for the future, whether it be just getting by or bettering themselves and proving people wrong. For Ruby, she has no plans to go to college, until Cora encouraged her, and she started to believe that it was a true possibility. As a positive note at the end of the novel, Ruby emails a photocopy of her college acceptance letter to her mother who in rehab. A vast change of heart occurs in her and it serves as a confidence boost because she realizes that, although she can take care of and support herself, that it does not have to be her sole focus, as she now has a healthy and reliable relationship with her sister to fall back on in times of need. Nate’s father is controlling and seeks to inhibit his success, yet in the midst of being uprooted from his abusive home, Nate gets into the school …show more content…
He is “at the end of [his] rope and [feels] that [he] is suffocating,” until on one of his worst days, he finally breaks down and surrenders to his every emotion and finally comes to peace with himself (Bellow 110). Many people feel stifled at some point in their lives, whether it be because of a death in a family, a financial crisis, or any number of issues. However, by finding at least one person with whom to establish a supportive relationship, maintaining an ability to feel every emotion completely, no matter how painful, and then releasing it, one will be able to healthily find and define their source of happiness and live in the moment instead of worrying about the future. In Seize the Day, Tamkin thieves Wilhelm of his last penny, but leaves him with a rich piece of advice, saying that the past is no good to us [and the] future is full of anxiety. Only the present is real- the here-and-now” (Bellow