Painful Memories In Karmac Mccarthy's 'The Portrait'

Register to read the introduction… The father best exemplifies this when he states “You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget” (McCarthy 12). This shows that compared to the child, the father does not seem to possess a need for knowledge. The father has gone through losing his wife and he is currently fighting to keep him and his son alive. The father does not look into the past because he knows that the best thing for him and his son to do is to just keep moving forward. While the need for knowledge can be a good thing for the child, sometimes it can be hurtful for the father.
The next point shown in both the novel and the poem is the curiosity of the young children. In “The Portrait”, the young boy displays curiosity by saying “When I came down from the attic/ with a pastel portrait in my hand” (Kunitz 134). I believe that the fact that the boy was rummaging through the attic shows that he wanted to explore and find answers to questions that he may have about finding something from the past that he did not recognize. This reflects what it means to be human because it is human nature to be curious about the world around us, and to explore what may have been in the …show more content…
There is a slight difference in the way that the responsibility was left though. The burden of responsibility can be shown in the line of the poem which states “She ripped it into shreds and slapped me on the hand” (Kunitz 134). I believe that the meaning behind this line shows that just the sight of the portrait triggered a reaction to every responsibility that the woman’s husband left her with when he committed suicide. This reflects what it means to be human because as humans, seeing an object that trigger a painful memory can cause our attitude to change to an unpleasant