Can We Love Our Battering Fathers?
... was, to him, to be less than a man.” (9) Her father might have wanted to be as kind and as gentle as her mother was, but his generation did not accept such weak men. The use of diction throughout the essay is emotional: “emotional scars from years of living in fear…” (7) She recollects the “thumps” and “screams” at night from her childhood. The Father was raised in a traditional household where his mother “resented her powerlessness” (9), and the men took charge of everything, including their wives. The Father was a victim of his mother’s anger and her acts of violent rage, “…he once hated his mother…” (7) This is why, according to Gordon’s “bond” with her Father, she cannot hate such a man. Gordon feels that she cannot just shun him out of her life, remembering that under this temperamental alcoholic drunk was also a man with real feelings: But I cannot hate a man who once told me humbly that he Knew he hadn’t been as good a parent as he might have been, Hoping I would at least credit him with doing better by me Than his mother had done by him. (7) This is one of the rare occasions which the Father is able to open up to his daughter and talk about his feelings. The vase is a symbol of the Mother’s beauty; “gentle, loving Mother” (8). The breaking of the vase foreshadows an important event which affects the future of the family. The Mother is literally being broken to pieces by the Father pummeling her, beating her, beating her with the fists: “…Dad pushed Mother down two flights of stairs and pummeled her crumpled body…” (8) This incident marked a divorce which left the Mother and children to live in poverty. Gordon also uses formal words such as ominous, in this case, a presentment of evil, the foreshadowing of the Mother’s tragic event. Through direct speak the reader can hear the voice of the father and identify his threatening character, “What the hell d’ja put that thing there for?” (7) The Father was unapologetic and unsympathetic towards the Mother and her grief for her “beloved vase” (7). Gordon depicts her mother’s soft and loving figur...