Themes In Notes To My Biographer By Adam Haslett

In the story, written by Adam Haslett, “Notes To My Biographer” Haslett engages the audience into the perspective of a metal psychologically ill old man. Haslett shares what could be considered as selfish acts are in reality cries of loneliness. In the story, a seventy-three old man named Franklin is narrating his own story. Franklin is no ordinary man, he seems to be luring in and out of reality and tends to imagine the world as his own. Franklin shows signs of having a mental illness and subtly explains that this is the reason why his own children no longer desire communication with him. Haslett uses a crazed yet ironic tone, from the beginning of the text Franklin identifies himself “Perfectly lucid” (Haslett 1), yet goes on to say how …show more content…
Franklin clearly knows that people treat him with sympathy because of his illness. When Franklin arrives at his sons, Graham, apartment and is greeted by Graham’s friend, who is clearly his partner, “It becomes clear to me that Graham has given him the family line. His face grows patient and his smile begins to leak the sympathy of the ignorant” (Haslett 1). Franklin knows that people treat him differently because of his illness yet he continues with daily life, choosing vivid delusions instead of having a family with a numb life. He does not concern himself with what people think. Haslett made Franklin the narrator and the protagonist, in order to show the vividness of Franklin’s world. It is a way to offer a glimpse of the mentality of a psychologically ill …show more content…
The only difference is that Graham takes his medication in order to contain his symptoms, “Because I take them. You understand, Dad? It’s in me too. I don’t want Ben to find me in a parking lot in the middle of the night in my pajamas talking to a stranger like Mom found you” (Haslett 4). Graham has an enormous fear of becoming like his father. He does not want to share the same loneliness and uncertain future his father has. Franklin wants Graham to join him in his delusions, from a young age Graham and Franklin have only understood each other, "The sound of his mother in the kitchen running water, the murmur if the radio, and the stillness of evening in the country, how he seemed to understand it as well as I" (Haslett 4). Franklin is in dire need of wanting Graham to accompany his world, so that Franklin will no longer be lonely. Graham can hear his fathers’ cry yet knows the consequences go these delusions