ipl-logo

Sunday In The Park Bel Kaufman Analysis

676 Words3 Pages

Michael Brooks
ENGH 396
Reading Response #2
September 17, 2015
Sunday in the Park Sunday in the Park by Bel Kaufman is an emotional short story the details a nice family’s encounter with an obnoxious, unpolished family. The short story plays on human emotion, instinct, and behavior as a way to illustrate the contrasting differences between both families. The story is about a family, a mother, a father and a young boy, who intend to spend a relaxing day together in the park. In the park, the young boy from the “nice family” is playing in the sandbox with a young boy from the other family. Suddenly, the boy from the other family starts throwing sand at the boy from the main family. The boy’s mother asks the other young man in the sandbox to …show more content…

Kaufman uses great detail in setting up the scene by announcing more than once that Morton is off on the sidelines, quietly reading to himself. The doing so it paints the picture that he is generally a calm, mild-mannered individual. When Morton has his first interaction with the other father his body language is slumped and soft. It is almost as if he is afraid of the other father. In fact, after the two fathers have a rather awkward stare-down, Morton turns his back first to leave. By turning his back first it signals his meekness and passive nature. At the very end Morton’s tries to flex his authority and masculinity by offering to discipline their child who will not stop crying. When Morton tries to bypass the mother’s attempts at subduing their child he says, “If you can’t discipline this child, I will,” to which the mother coldly snaps back, “Indeed? You and who else?” This shows that the mother character has lost all respect for her husband, Morton. So much so that she cannot even trust that he has the control and muscle to discipline even their young boy.
Another way Kaufman chooses to build the character of Morton is by his frequent description of the park. Kaufman makes a conscientious effort to describe the park as “motionless”, “abandoned”, and even “deserted”. This description of the park speaks to the type of man Morton is. He is “motionless” when he interacts with the other father as he is unable to physically stand up for both himself and his family. While he doesn’t technically “abandon” or “deserted” his family, Morton has figuratively abandoned and deserted his role as leader and protector of his family as seen by is inability to handle the

Show More
Related

Into The Wild, By Chris Mccandless: Issues With His Father

245 Words | 1 Pages

Another turning point in which McCandless lost trust in his father occurs during the revealing of his father’s secret, second family after questioning a number of old family friends. This pushes McCandless past his limit, and results into him rejecting his

Read More

Analysis Of Another Brooklyn By Jaqueline Woodson

1055 Words | 5 Pages

Brooklyn in the 1970s was plagued by severe economic and political troubles unlike any the city's inhabitants had experienced before. This is what Brooklyn was described as by a recent PBS article, for one to be living in these conditions their life must have been shaped pretty severely. On the contrary, living in Scarsdale has brought me many opportunities that someone living in that Brooklyn setting might not have been able to obtain. August, a character in Jaqueline Woodson, Another Brooklyn, lived in this harsh time period filled with a multitude of problems. This realistic fiction novel accurately depicts the story of a young woman attempting to thrive in a place like Brooklyn.

Read More

Michael Morton Research Paper

817 Words | 4 Pages

He saw his son Eric only twice a year. "I would love seeing him, I was fascinated with his every move," Morton says. But Eric "was becoming more distant," Morton says. "He was becoming less mine." As a teen, Eric had no memories of his father outside of prison.

Read More

Dysfunction Of The Family In The Film Ordinary People

515 Words | 3 Pages

He too, like Beth, practiced repression when dealing with Buck's death. Throughout the film, he is perceived as a sort of mediator between mom and son and serves as the rational superego that his wife does not have. In doing this, he is consistently honest and genuinely voices his thoughts and feeling, which occasionally cause him to sound demeaning and critical. His main problem in conflict management is failing to validate other’s feelings which consequently cause the receiver to feel emotionally insecure. This can be demonstrated when he was with Beth on the golf course.

Read More

Cormac Mccarthy The Road Hope

804 Words | 4 Pages

In this scene, the man recalls the final conversation he had with his wife, the boy’s mother. She expresses her plans to commit suicide, while the man begs her to stay alive. To begin, the woman’s discussion of dreams definitively establishes a mood of despair. In the

Read More

Busyness By Gopnik Analysis

173 Words | 1 Pages

First of all, even though both parents care equally for their children it does not separate the fact that different methods can have different impacts. According to the text, Gopnik states, “Busyness is our art form, our civic ritual, our way of being us” (160). This means that the way the world functions around him is all about being busy and never spending time away from that. It shows that as a parent even though he cares for his daughter, it slips his mind that she is going through these emotions because of the ritual of being busy. If it were not to be a “civic ritual” then he would notice the actions of his daughter earlier and be more active in the situation than letting it develop over a period of time.

Read More

Diversity In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

1410 Words | 6 Pages

When it comes to his dad, he is willing to do what he can for the safety of his child. In one instance, he shot a man right in front of The Boy, because that man was trying to hurt him. The boy, however, did not understand why his dad had done this. To him, he saw that killing people was wrong, no matter the situation or excuse. He was not able to think like his dad, because he was too young, and did not have the same perspective as him.

Read More

Examples Of Loneliness In The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

863 Words | 4 Pages

In enduring these complex emotions, this section was the most remarkable part. One of the first apparent emotions the boy experiences with the death of his father is loneliness to make this section memorable. The boy expresses this sentiment when he stays with his father described as, “When he came back he knelt beside his father and held his cold hand and said his name over and over again,” (McCarthy 281). The definition of loneliness is, “sadness because one has no friends or company.”

Read More

Vacation In Juan Forn's Swimming At Night

1463 Words | 6 Pages

to still keep established pace and tone, which is that calm, disassociated mood. At this point the father, the reader might think, is a construction of the husband’s mind, because the husband had focused on “the idea of never seeing him again. . . .” which struck him the most out of this chance meeting, rather than on the present moment of seeing him (Forn 345). However surreal this may be in real life, the narrator manages to keep the same weight through the pacing in the story to give this story a certain realism through the husband’s

Read More

The Migrant Mother Photograph Analysis

413 Words | 2 Pages

This represents how the children rely on her through this rough time in society. You can tell this mother has been through a lot of hardship throughout her life as her eyes are looking off in the distance and her palm is touching her blemished, wrinkled face. Her thin, chapped mouth appears to be frowning, like she is thinking of a plan, perhaps a way to feed her starving children. The end of her unwashed sleeves looks to be torn from the low paying labor she is forced to perform. Her bony

Read More

Gaslight Movie Analysis

921 Words | 4 Pages

When he is telling Paula, something is her fault his demeaner becomes stiff, and cold. He looks down on her like a scolding parent, and is eyes look filled with anger. This expression of emotions is important to Paula’s character both loving and being fearful of her

Read More

Summary: Another Bullshit Night In Suck City

1141 Words | 5 Pages

This sentence delivers a depressing and pessimistic mood, using three different descriptions portray his father’s figure in Flynn’s life, and each of them reinforces themselves. The sentences are short and to the point, and some sentences are even fragmented. “Many fathers are gone. Some leave, some are left,” Flynn writes. (23)

Read More

The Breakfast Club Analysis

950 Words | 4 Pages

The Breakfast Club is not in fact a movie about bacon 'n eggs. It’s a coming of age film about five coincidentally different teenagers all linked together by one common element, Saturday detention. At first, they are all close-minded and judgmental of each other until coming to realize they may be from different circles of friends but are not so different in the end. This film is still remarkably relatable to this day. Everyone in this film is in his or her own societal bubbles, but come to understand they are all facing the same problems.

Read More

A Literary Analysis Of Powder By Tobias Wolff

888 Words | 4 Pages

“He was indifferent to my fretting.” This quote shows that the father cares more about having fun with his kid than by adhering to the strict guidelines his wife has set. During the son’s pivotal moment where he starts to enjoy his time he see’s his father in a different light than what he used to the son realizes how much fun he has had with his father during the trip and on all the past trips they have been on. The changing relationship between the father and son is demonstrated, when the son thinks back to what happened on the car ride back.

Read More

The Company Man Ellen Goodman Analysis

564 Words | 3 Pages

The company president said to Phil's wife, "I know how much you will miss him. " Phil's wife answers, "I already do." Since Phil was seldom at home and spent the majority of his time at work, his presence was missed before he died. Goodman's cleverly worded phrases such as when Phil's "dearly beloved" eldest son asks neighbors what his father was like and the embarrassment that caused. Goodman uses these details to demonstrate what a pitiful life Phil lived, while at the same time using a slightly sarcastic tone in the quote "dearly beloved," to demonstrate that his eldest son wasn't loved or cherished by his father.

Read More

More about Sunday In The Park Bel Kaufman Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document