In most families, the role of a parent depends solely upon the relationship that they have with their children. In Alan McMonagle short story entitled Liar Liar, the author portrays the main character of the story—the father— as the epitome of a great man, in the eyes of his naive son. The main theme of Alan McMonagle’s short story Liar Liar is relationships. In the story, the father uses the gangster western films to communicate with his son in order to fulfill the desires of escaping his worrisome life, not being aware of the repercussions that may exist. This is portrayed in the story through the use of characterization of the father figure, incorporating American Gangster Film values and morals in juxtaposing the father’s actions and the
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According the son’s perspective, the father is seen as an exemplary character due to the boy’s immature brain’s inability to see the underlying flaws of adults—his old man in this case— as he is simply a child. Consequently, this emotional blindness causes the son to see his father as a joyous man as he is described to always be happier when he walks home with a brown paper bag in his hands late at night (McMonagle 53). Moreover, unaware of the concept of inebriation and the way that it alters an adult brain to feel certain unforeseen emotions, the son’s description of his father is naive as he states in the story: “It’s like one person goes out the door and another comes back” (McMonagle 57). Furthermore, this description purely demonstrates the narrator’s way of showing the dubious relationship between the father and the son as the boy does not recognize the same man to be his father before and after his consistent routine. Therefore, by showing two different versions of his elder, the narrator is found to be situated in between two split personalities of his own father, which later influences the son to see his father as a great man with a confusing lifestyle. This miscommunication between the father and his son shows the reader that even with the minuscule acknowledgment of his …show more content…
The parallel between the son and the reader depicts the way in which the misunderstanding of the father’s alcohol addiction led to the son looking up to his father as the epitome of an amazing human. Thus, as the son is a novice to adulthood, he looks up to his elder only when this older individual is in his state of inebriation. For instance, one night his father sporadically comes up with the idea to “move to America”. This idea was found to interest the son as he found it to be an interesting goal to think about as his identity degraded into becoming an American gangster (McMonagle 55). This fondness for gangsters, although not fully developed in the child’s mind, is detrimental as he is only following in his father’s footsteps, which to him is positive but to everyone else is not. As a result, by not being aware of his father’s drunken state, he is made to believe that he and his father will in fact “move to America” (McMonagle 55) to share their newfound passion for gangsters and eventually become one. As the story progresses, the reader demonstrates that the son is validating what he and his father committed such as stealing and lying because of the fact that the father “He has to save money before we can go.”
According the son’s perspective, the father is seen as an exemplary character due to the boy’s immature brain’s inability to see the underlying flaws of adults—his old man in this case— as he is simply a child. Consequently, this emotional blindness causes the son to see his father as a joyous man as he is described to always be happier when he walks home with a brown paper bag in his hands late at night (McMonagle 53). Moreover, unaware of the concept of inebriation and the way that it alters an adult brain to feel certain unforeseen emotions, the son’s description of his father is naive as he states in the story: “It’s like one person goes out the door and another comes back” (McMonagle 57). Furthermore, this description purely demonstrates the narrator’s way of showing the dubious relationship between the father and the son as the boy does not recognize the same man to be his father before and after his consistent routine. Therefore, by showing two different versions of his elder, the narrator is found to be situated in between two split personalities of his own father, which later influences the son to see his father as a great man with a confusing lifestyle. This miscommunication between the father and his son shows the reader that even with the minuscule acknowledgment of his …show more content…
The parallel between the son and the reader depicts the way in which the misunderstanding of the father’s alcohol addiction led to the son looking up to his father as the epitome of an amazing human. Thus, as the son is a novice to adulthood, he looks up to his elder only when this older individual is in his state of inebriation. For instance, one night his father sporadically comes up with the idea to “move to America”. This idea was found to interest the son as he found it to be an interesting goal to think about as his identity degraded into becoming an American gangster (McMonagle 55). This fondness for gangsters, although not fully developed in the child’s mind, is detrimental as he is only following in his father’s footsteps, which to him is positive but to everyone else is not. As a result, by not being aware of his father’s drunken state, he is made to believe that he and his father will in fact “move to America” (McMonagle 55) to share their newfound passion for gangsters and eventually become one. As the story progresses, the reader demonstrates that the son is validating what he and his father committed such as stealing and lying because of the fact that the father “He has to save money before we can go.”