Not My Father's Son: A Memoir

Alan Cumming shares an insight of the destructive hardship he faced as a child in his very descriptive narrative “Not My Father’s Son: A Memoir.” His dark and frightful tone as well as his deeply illustrated word choice is consistent throughout his writing as he shares the verbal and physical abuse he received from a very young age. Cumming takes his readers back to the time where he trembles in his boots from the sheer glare of his father, declaring dominance of the latter. He begins his one-night depiction by his father’s demand for him to get a haircut - a simple task to another - but goes on to explain that his father’s anger is stemmed from unhappiness and need for power. His father never tried to hide his temper, Cumming expressed that he can be easily read by “the tone of every word he uttered, his body language, (and) the energy he brought into a room.” Through his sorrowful story, Cumming reflects on the childhood he could’ve had: a young boy growing up on his father’s large estate. …show more content…
Failing that attempt, Cumming’s father violently takes out his anger on Cumming’s head with a pair of rusty clippers leaving him petrified and lacerated. Though his flashback had an unpleasant ending, his narrative doesn’t finish there; he goes on to describe the recovery he achieved as his present self. Cumming uses his hair (which has now seen every color of the rainbow) as a symbol of freedom, from his past, his fear, and his father. The moral he concluded with was that hardships are a process and need time and perspective to learn from and to