Moran's mind is at its most methodical when set to the task of parenting. Moran distrusts his "thirteen or fourteen" year old son, also named Jacques, admitting that "there were times I suspected my son of deceit" (94). This is an understatement; Moran frequently interrogates his son, grilling him about his whereabouts and intentions. When the younger Jacques complains of a toothache, Moran calls his son's pain a lie.
Moran domineers his son partly to maintain authority. Considering returning a stamp collection he has confiscated from his son, Moran decides "that to go back on my decision... would deal a blow to my authority which it was in no condition to sustain" (116). Moran gives scant consideration to his son's feelings or sense of dignity; when the young Jacque falls ill, Moran administers an enema against the boy's resistance.
Yet tenderness countervails this harshness. After a particular brutal scolding, the sight of the boy, alone in his room with "his arms on the table and his head on his arms," goes "straight to [Moran's] heart" (104). This paternal concern appears again when Maran "wonder[s] how... I could chain my son to me in such a way as to prevent him from ever shaking me off again" (124). It's as if, sensing Jacque's advance towards manhood and the dwindling of his own life, Moran wants to tether himself to his son, like a mother to her newborn. Such is a vain wish, Moran learns.
Yes I also found this interesting, being that at the beginning Moran does claim to have this methodical outlook and way of experiencing life that virtually nothing can derail, until his son comes into being. It is almost as if you can only live emotionless or on a cheese wheel for so long before something will trip you up, falling back to earth you have the needed realization that their are simply things in life that will not fit inside the mold follow a certain set of standards or much less follow standards implemented by us human beings who pale in comparison to the wisdom possessed by this earth or the world.
ReplyDeleteTHIS instance or epiphany or rock in a hard plACe for Moran happened to be his son. I suppose with children everything is chaos, messy, and universal rules one may have once followed no longer apply when it comess to children. While looking at his sick son it finally hits him, that their exists no riddle rhyme or schedule that can make this better, methodology exists only as a manifesttion of our own minds, therefore it cannot ever supercede the mind in and of itself...........nice blooooog yo!
ReplyDeleteSincerely,
Ashlee