酷我-北美枫

[ericcoliu]

Leaving Home: A Tug-of-war between Father and Son


In his family play, Leaving Home, David French develops realistically believable characters and authentic dialogue to capture the spirit and flavour of a Newfoundland family, and then painfully examines of parental and filial relationships which have gradually become twisted to the point of collapse. Leaving Home discourses on patriarchal domination and failure in a family of opposing forces -- the proud, inarticulate defeated father demanding his patriarchal rights versus the rebellious and coming-of-age son seeking his independence. At the end of the play, the young son, Ben, finally strikes out on his own after a terrible row with his furious father, Jacob, leaving the rift between them as unresolved as Jacob’s own sense of manhood and feelings of cultural alienation.

The prominent conflicts between Jacob and Ben mostly come from generational tensions: youthful independence versus paternal authority. On the one hand, Ben firmly thinks that he has grown up and wants to be independent, and he becomes afraid of what he may become after other people say, “you are more like your father”. But on the other hand, Jacob desperately attempts to gain control over everything and everyone around him: no one can tell him what he can say and do in his own house. Jacob views himself as the breadwinner and therefore, the only man in the household, a man who undoubtfully deserves more respect and obedience from his family. He thinks nothing of the emergent fact that his son is old enough to be his own man.

This kind of emotional conflict or even the physical violence that can occur is not unusual between father and son. Family sociologists have observed three basic evolutionary and approximate phases in a typical father-son lifetime relationship: Phase I, ego-blending (birth to twelve years); Phase II, incipient independence and a struggle on the son’s part to be his own individual (thirteen to nineteen years); and Phase III, man-to-man loving friends (from twenty on). The relationship between Ben and Jacob is obviously in Phase II for Ben has planned to set out on his own and defines his self in his own terms. This phase of a father-son relationship is fraught with seemingly unavoidable and insurmountable questions. All of these more serious problems can be easily avoided or peacefully resolved if a father and a son each have a good understanding of the dynamics of what is happening between them, and also possess a strong will to listen to each other and to sense feelings without self-presumption.

Unfortunately, Jacob, who lacks the ability to understand the forces at play, shows no willingness to help his son’s ego development and smoothly entering into manhood. All Jacob does is to frame Ben as being lower in status, impressing upon him how much less of a man he is and thereby, maintaining the paternal authority. Lacking in the Jacob-Ben relationship is the ability to communicate, confront, work through and adjust to their conflicts and the concomitant frustrations that constitute their situations. As a result, each has hidden agenda of constant anger toward the other that impedes resolution and ultimately leads to emotional exhaustion and, in extreme cases, the impulse to resort to violence. Soon on, one can predict the ending of the play: a family breaks.

Leaving Home springs from a traditional form, and one may initially classify it as a descendant of the modern domestic tragedy, such as Death of a Salesman. The whole play is mainly driven by archetypal energy: the difficult passage into manhood involving battles for position and control. What makes this play special are the cultural circumstances that shape this energy as a battlefield for father and son to combat with their generational value differences. After almost ten years of Confederation and even longer living in Toronto, Jacob still thinks in terms of “Canadian” and “Newfie”. It is no wonder that he indulges in telling tales about Newfoundland.

As well, Jacob’s cultural identity is closely tied to his paternal authority and self-image. In order to sustain the “legend” on which his own sense of manhood is based (“I was out fishing on the Labrador when I was ten years old… and I had to stand up and took it like a man. That’s a lot tougher than a few harsh words from his father.”), he must perpetuate it in his sons. Therefore, he tests Ben’s manhood by demanding that Ben drinks not Canadian whisky but Newfie “screech”, which “get the makings of a man.” Moreover, he often picks on Ben for his softness and hiding under his mother’s skirts, and he persistently has harsh words on him. Due to his cultural and upbringing background, Jacob is kind of a macho father, who has an exaggerated notion of masculinity; ironically, a macho father’s hopes for his son’s excessive masculinity can lead to a no-win situation. If the son is less macho or manly than the father, the father is disappointed (“Ah, he’s too damn soft…He’ll need to be strong or -- he’ll end up like your cousin Israel…Chew him up alive and swallow him down without a trace.”); and if the son surpasses his father’s masculinity, the macho father feels threatened, even defeated by his own son (“I still haven’t got hair on my chest, and I’m still not a threat to you.”). In either case his hopes are not fulfilled and he loses. In fact, deep inside the macho father’s heart, he doesn’t really want his son to become an adult because he will then totally lose control over his son.

Midway through the play, Jacob asks his would-be in-law, Minnie, about her boyfriend Harold: “What is he, Minnie? Newfie?” “No, boy –Canadian” she answers. French creates Harold’s character as a comic symbol of the “Canadian” Other perceived by the Newfies: a gray and humorless man who speaks nothing but carries a big stick. Harold’s sexual potency serves as a foil for Jacob’s sense of impotence of patriarchal failure; that’s because his own sons are fed up with him and pay no attention to his often-told tall tales. Ben is especially insensitive to his father’s feelings of cultural identy and alienation, and even yells at him, “I’m sick of hearing about your fucking day! This is my day, and we’re strangers.”

On learning of Ben’s leaving home, Jacob is in a desperate attempt to persuade him from going by showing him photos of the family back “home”; however, Jacob’s efforts are in vain. Ben’s leaving home means incipient independence and a struggle to be his own individual because of “a different generation growing up now”, and Jacob’s reaction -- bringing his belt hard on Ben’s back six times -- marks his last fight against patriarchal failure as a father, and even as a man. The son eventually and completely shatters his father’s hope of sustaining and defending his cultural heritage -- the cherished source of his sense of manhood and feeling of cultural identify -- within the garrison of the family, leaving the irresolvable conflict between them, the father remaining bound by the powerful pull of Newfoundland and the son making the perilous choice of leaving home.

Leaving Home is a play of a man who cannot allow his children to leave but, in doing so, unwittingly forces them out of the home by compelling them to reject him as a father and even as a man. Jacob Mercer is not merely the victim of accident (he tumbled off the garage roof and sprained his back), or heredity (he never had a choice in his day), but a pathetic man indulging in victimization. “I’ll give you a revelation!” he declares angrily to his wife, “I’m just a piece of shit around here!” Jacob continually spits, curses, and argues until he gets his own way, forcing the others to alienate him from themselves. Finally, even his wife in frustrated outrage can only scream at him, “You don’t know when to stop, do you? You just don’t know when to call a halt… You’d go on until you brought your whole house tumbling down.” Jacob is so insecure of his own worth that anything and everything can ruffle his mind and manner, bringing him to irrational outbursts of anger and frustration. He even chooses self-victimization in a desperate attempt to retain at least some measure of dignity.

Based on my close reading of this tug-of-war between father and son, I think playwright David French seems to have difficulty treating his father figure with understanding and sympathy. The whole play is so loaded against Jacob that it becomes almost impossible for the reader to think over the heated issues from his perspective, difficult even to take him seriously because of his inarticulacy, unreasonability and narrow-mindedness. French’s identification with Ben and his sympathy toward Mary is so obvious that the scales are constantly weighted in favour of one side, and hence the play suffers from the balance of opposing forces. Although in the end Mary gets the last words to make the final adjustment to the reader’s emotional allegiance, what the play needs is an authorial sympathy for a father who can counterpoise his son.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[[ericcoliu]]

Leaving Home: A Tug-of-war between Father and Son


In his family play, Leaving Home, David French develops realistically believable characters and authentic dialogue to capture the spirit and flavour of a Newfoundland family, and then painfully examines of parental and filial relationships which have gradually become twisted to the point of collapse. Leaving Home discourses on patriarchal domination and failure in a family of opposing forces -- the proud, inarticulate defeated father demanding his patriarchal rights versus the rebellious and coming-of-age son seeking his independence. At the end of the play, the young son, Ben, finally strikes out on his own after a terrible row with his furious father, Jacob, leaving the rift between them as unresolved as Jacob’s own sense of manhood and feelings of cultural alienation.

The prominent conflicts between Jacob and Ben mostly come from generational tensions: youthful independence versus paternal authority. On the one hand, Ben firmly thinks that he has grown up and wants to be independent, and he becomes afraid of what he may become after other people say, “you are more like your father”. But on the other hand, Jacob desperately attempts to gain control over everything and everyone around him: no one can tell him what he can say and do in his own house. Jacob views himself as the breadwinner and therefore, the only man in the household, a man who undoubtfully deserves more respect and obedience from his family. He thinks nothing of the emergent fact that his son is old enough to be his own man.

This kind of emotional conflict or even the physical violence that can occur is not unusual between father and son. Family sociologists have observed three basic evolutionary and approximate phases in a typical father-son lifetime relationship: Phase I, ego-blending (birth to twelve years); Phase II, incipient independence and a struggle on the son’s part to be his own individual (thirteen to nineteen years); and Phase III, man-to-man loving friends (from twenty on). The relationship between Ben and Jacob is obviously in Phase II for Ben has planned to set out on his own and defines his self in his own terms. This phase of a father-son relationship is fraught with seemingly unavoidable and insurmountable questions. All of these more serious problems can be easily avoided or peacefully resolved if a father and a son each have a good understanding of the dynamics of what is happening between them, and also possess a strong will to listen to each other and to sense feelings without self-presumption.

Unfortunately, Jacob, who lacks the ability to understand the forces at play, shows no willingness to help his son’s ego development and smoothly entering into manhood. All Jacob does is to frame Ben as being lower in status, impressing upon him how much less of a man he is and thereby, maintaining the paternal authority. Lacking in the Jacob-Ben relationship is the ability to communicate, confront, work through and adjust to their conflicts and the concomitant frustrations that constitute their situations. As a result, each has hidden agenda of constant anger toward the other that impedes resolution and ultimately leads to emotional exhaustion and, in extreme cases, the impulse to resort to violence. Soon on, one can predict the ending of the play: a family breaks.

Leaving Home springs from a traditional form, and one may initially classify it as a descendant of the modern domestic tragedy, such as Death of a Salesman. The whole play is mainly driven by archetypal energy: the difficult passage into manhood involving battles for position and control. What makes this play special are the cultural circumstances that shape this energy as a battlefield for father and son to combat with their generational value differences. After almost ten years of Confederation and even longer living in Toronto, Jacob still thinks in terms of “Canadian” and “Newfie”. It is no wonder that he indulges in telling tales about Newfoundland.

As well, Jacob’s cultural identity is closely tied to his paternal authority and self-image. In order to sustain the “legend” on which his own sense of manhood is based (“I was out fishing on the Labrador when I was ten years old… and I had to stand up and took it like a man. That’s a lot tougher than a few harsh words from his father.”), he must perpetuate it in his sons. Therefore, he tests Ben’s manhood by demanding that Ben drinks not Canadian whisky but Newfie “screech”, which “get the makings of a man.” Moreover, he often picks on Ben for his softness and hiding under his mother’s skirts, and he persistently has harsh words on him. Due to his cultural and upbringing background, Jacob is kind of a macho father, who has an exaggerated notion of masculinity; ironically, a macho father’s hopes for his son’s excessive masculinity can lead to a no-win situation. If the son is less macho or manly than the father, the father is disappointed (“Ah, he’s too damn soft…He’ll need to be strong or -- he’ll end up like your cousin Israel…Chew him up alive and swallow him down without a trace.”); and if the son surpasses his father’s masculinity, the macho father feels threatened, even defeated by his own son (“I still haven’t got hair on my chest, and I’m still not a threat to you.”). In either case his hopes are not fulfilled and he loses. In fact, deep inside the macho father’s heart, he doesn’t really want his son to become an adult because he will then totally lose control over his son.

Midway through the play, Jacob asks his would-be in-law, Minnie, about her boyfriend Harold: “What is he, Minnie? Newfie?” “No, boy –Canadian” she answers. French creates Harold’s character as a comic symbol of the “Canadian” Other perceived by the Newfies: a gray and humorless man who speaks nothing but carries a big stick. Harold’s sexual potency serves as a foil for Jacob’s sense of impotence of patriarchal failure; that’s because his own sons are fed up with him and pay no attention to his often-told tall tales. Ben is especially insensitive to his father’s feelings of cultural identy and alienation, and even yells at him, “I’m sick of hearing about your fucking day! This is my day, and we’re strangers.”

On learning of Ben’s leaving home, Jacob is in a desperate attempt to persuade him from going by showing him photos of the family back “home”; however, Jacob’s efforts are in vain. Ben’s leaving home means incipient independence and a struggle to be his own individual because of “a different generation growing up now”, and Jacob’s reaction -- bringing his belt hard on Ben’s back six times -- marks his last fight against patriarchal failure as a father, and even as a man. The son eventually and completely shatters his father’s hope of sustaining and defending his cultural heritage -- the cherished source of his sense of manhood and feeling of cultural identify -- within the garrison of the family, leaving the irresolvable conflict between them, the father remaining bound by the powerful pull of Newfoundland and the son making the perilous choice of leaving home.

Leaving Home is a play of a man who cannot allow his children to leave but, in doing so, unwittingly forces them out of the home by compelling them to reject him as a father and even as a man. Jacob Mercer is not merely the victim of accident (he tumbled off the garage roof and sprained his back), or heredity (he never had a choice in his day), but a pathetic man indulging in victimization. “I’ll give you a revelation!” he declares angrily to his wife, “I’m just a piece of shit around here!” Jacob continually spits, curses, and argues until he gets his own way, forcing the others to alienate him from themselves. Finally, even his wife in frustrated outrage can only scream at him, “You don’t know when to stop, do you? You just don’t know when to call a halt… You’d go on until you brought your whole house tumbling down.” Jacob is so insecure of his own worth that anything and everything can ruffle his mind and manner, bringing him to irrational outbursts of anger and frustration. He even chooses self-victimization in a desperate attempt to retain at least some measure of dignity.

Based on my close reading of this tug-of-war between father and son, I think playwright David French seems to have difficulty treating his father figure with understanding and sympathy. The whole play is so loaded against Jacob that it becomes almost impossible for the reader to think over the heated issues from his perspective, difficult even to take him seriously because of his inarticulacy, unreasonability and narrow-mindedness. French’s identification with Ben and his sympathy toward Mary is so obvious that the scales are constantly weighted in favour of one side, and hence the play suffers from the balance of opposing forces. Although in the end Mary gets the last words to make the final adjustment to the reader’s emotional allegiance, what the play needs is an authorial sympathy for a father who can counterpoise his son.
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[christine]

[[christine]]

[ericcoliu]

[[ericcoliu]]

[川生]

[[川生]]

[ericcoliu]

[[ericcoliu]]

[ericcoliu]

I've revised my essay to make it further tightened up.

For anyone who is interested in this play but has no chance of reading it, he/she can read the Wikipedia entry regarding Leaving Home for further information.

Below is the synopsis:

"The play focuses on the Mercer family, and is part of French's series of plays that revolve around that family, including Salt Water Moon, 1949, Of The Fields, Lately, and Soldier's Heart. In Leaving Home, the Mercer family is in the throws of preparations for their youngest sons (Bill) wedding to a young lady (Kathy) he has gotten pregnant. As they sit down to dinner the night of the wedding rehearsal, things erupt when Ben, the elder son, reveals he is moving out as well. Minnie, Kathy's mother, arrives and throws a wrench into the proceedings, bringing up the relationship she once shared with Jacob. When it's revealed that Kathy has had a miscarriage, the teens are left to choose whether or not they will continue with their wedding plans."
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[[ericcoliu]]

I've revised my essay to make it further tightened up.

For anyone who is interested in this play but has no chance of reading it, he/she can read the Wikipedia entry regarding Leaving Home for further information.

Below is the synopsis:

"The play focuses on the Mercer family, and is part of French's series of plays that revolve around that family, including Salt Water Moon, 1949, Of The Fields, Lately, and Soldier's Heart. In Leaving Home, the Mercer family is in the throws of preparations for their youngest sons (Bill) wedding to a young lady (Kathy) he has gotten pregnant. As they sit down to dinner the night of the wedding rehearsal, things erupt when Ben, the elder son, reveals he is moving out as well. Minnie, Kathy's mother, arrives and throws a wrench into the proceedings, bringing up the relationship she once shared with Jacob. When it's revealed that Kathy has had a miscarriage, the teens are left to choose whether or not they will continue with their wedding plans."
_________________
Time is nothing but a disquiet of the soul

[robarts]

[[robarts]]

[ericcoliu]

[[ericcoliu]]