Powder Story by Tobias Wolff, Essay Example

Is the father a good parent to his son?

Yes, the father is a good parent for several reasons. First, he takes good care of his son when they go out one evening. Secondly, he advises his son not to emulate his driving habits and goes on to offer an explanation why this would be a bad thing for the son to do. When the father asks the son to help him remove the barricades that had been put on the road by troopers, he knows he is doing a bad thing. He does not hide this fact from his son. He even says to him afterwards: “Now you’re an accomplice”. This shows that he is a straightforward and frank father who admits when he has done the wrong thing.

Qualities of the father

He is very caring although he pretends to portray a carefree attitude towards his son when the two are skiing. He had done a similar thing before, sneaking his son into a club. He is remorseful that his wife will never forgive him for sneaking the son into a nightclub, and now taking him out on the eve of Christmas and getting back home late at night. He says ““Your mother will never forgive me for this,”

The father is sensitive. He understands the virtues of his son very well, including the ability to think ahead. He says “Easy. You always think ahead.” Additionally, he says that his son has so many strong points that it would take a whole day to list them all. He is also sensitive about his wife’s feelings towards the decisions he made of going out with his son without her consent. After a long silence, he repeats to his son: “She won’t forgive me….Do you understand?

Never.”

He is sensitive about the feelings of all the family members and he says he wants to see everybody in the family happy again. “I’ll tell you what I want. I want us all to be together again”, he says.

Works Cited

Wolf, Tobias. “Powder.” 2^nd March, 2010. <www.ccdmd.qc.ca/media/pdf/en/EEE_Powder.pdf>