Respecting Boundaries In David Mcleans 'Marine Corps Issue'

In David McLeans short story Marine Corps Issue, Jonathan (the protagonist), demonstrates the theme respecting boundaries when he invades his father's privacy after he returns from the war. First, John sees his father go through some boxes that contained military remembrances. that made him drink, leading John to want to go through the boxes (340-341). Second, John steals the military box keys from his father and opens them revealing military remembrance ( 348-350 352-353). Third, John's dad sees him searching through his stuff, leaving him hurt by his son's actions but also causing a greater father and son bond ( 354-355). Throughout the story, Jonathan is curious and trying to figure out what happened to his dad in the war. This curiosity

. Jonathan also found a small book called Escape and Torture, when he opened the book he found diagrams, paragraphs about prison camps and how to escape them, and a section on Vietnamese torture techniques. When John read the section on Vietnamese torture techniques he saw notations written in the margins, “They were written in black ink, always the single word “this” in the margin next to an underlined passage … the first as I recall, described something with feet. Then beating on the legs, “this”. Then the hands. “This” was bamboo splinters under the nails. (McLean 353). In other words John invaded his father's privacy not respecting it at all.Finally, at the end of the story, Jonathan’s dad walked in on him searching through his boxes, he was hurt by his son's actions, when he walked into the shed and saw Jonathan looking through his stuff, “his eyes welled, and bright molten tears ran down his cheeks. Then he dropped the single key and walked away,” he then went outside and, “was sitting on the edge of the garden with his head down and eyes closed as if in prayer, his hands lying loose and unattached”(McLean 354-355). John and his father eventually created a bond and started talking about the war, “if we were alone, he would begin talking about some aspect of the war or of his service” (McLean 355). In other words Jonathan's dad was hurt when he saw his son looking through his stuff. Jonathan's actions mentally hurt his father because he didn't respect the boundaries and instead of asking him about the war he just went through his stuff. In real life most people don't want to talk about a “touchy” (topic they are sensitive about) subject unless the other person understands it. Although Johnathens dad was hurt by his son, looking through his fathers stuff created a more