The Importance Of Faith In Dorothy West's The Wedding

In Dorothy West’s The Wedding, parents decide their children 's’ futures; their ideals are instilled and then passed on, from child to successive child. The cycle of the Coles family begins with Preacher. His life’s work is the improvement of the Coles’ name. He becomes a preacher, pandering to a white community through faith. However, Preacher becomes aware that he cannot rise to the top of society in one lifetime, but rather, over many. He views his son Isaac as the vessel for his successful legacy. In turn, Isaac takes up his father’s mission to advance in society and, through his wife, passes this desire on to the young Clark. Thus, the burden to improve plagues the Coles family for generations; they make choices that will bring them success, …show more content…
Preacher molds Isaac in his image;this is why Isaac is cold at times to his wife and young family, as they represent his assimilation to society rather than a relationship formed from love. Isaac is pushed to this because Preacher needs to work beyond what he was given. He needs Isaac to, “exceed his wildest expectations… Preacher would rather die than see a son of his content with what he had…”(133). Isaac is the key to economic, social and racial expansion for Preacher. Preacher is a product of rape; the spawn of a white master forcing himself on his black mother. The Preacher had to work hard to attain the not so glorious life he leads;Isaac is the avatar for his dreams. This results in the Preacher saving his money while his boy grows up to make him into a form of investment,“With a church that made his title proper in the mouths of his flock and in the mouths of white men on Sunday, with a stall that made money, and a wife who earned money, and a house kept so clean that you could eat off the floor, Preacher could have the his son would do well if he did no worse”(133). He aspires to have his family line become more powerful financially and socially with every generation. To him family is not described as a caring loving group of people looking out for one another, Preacher doesn’t see it that way. His congregation, church and god a way to …show more content…
This schism accounts for Isaacs actions as a father, for why he was never around or why he was cold. Isaac comes from the life of a little above nothing that his father provides for him and is able to go to Harvard. Preacher doesn’t just want Isaac go to Harvard because his boy should have a great education to be his own man. Education for Isaac is device to bridge the gap in classes. It is the lever pushing him from lower to middle and then hopefully upper class. He did what he was made to do, he made the Coles name something. He followed the guidelines. He created an heir and had a wife,“There were too many advantages: marriage gave a busy doctor a home where he could get a meal without waiting for a table and a wife to mend his shirts, keep his social life in order, and give him sons...a fair skinned, graceful, and from an impeachable family... to carry on his name” (153). His aspirations instilled in him come before everything else. Isaac doesn’t follow Preacher perfectly as a father and husband. The schoolteacher is an object, a trophy to keep on a shelf to appease his materialistic social standing. Isaac dies to early to become any kind of impressionable father; Clark is too young to understand the man who briefly raised him. All he grows up knowing is what the