Prudence In Andre Dubus A Father's Story

Prudence is a virtue that many people aspire to incorporate in their lives. However, for many, attaining prudence is difficult due to a lack of understanding of what it actually means to be prudent. This can especially be seen in Andre Dubus’s “A Father’s Story” when the main character, Luke Ripley, falls to imprudence by his inability to understand what his actions will portray, commonly known as foresight. Prudence is not only having good judgement by foreseeing possible consequences, but also by understanding what the situation at hand holds. Ripley’s actions, on the behalf of his daughter, are not prudent due to his lack of foresight in correlation with his faulty understanding of what it means to be a father. When Ripley learns of his daughter’s actions, his immediate response is to protect his daughter at any cost. This becomes clear when he makes the statement, “Then I threw the cigarette and hope both out the window and prayed that he …show more content…
After the incident, he states, “It is a world of secrets, and now I have one from my best, in truth my only, friend. I have one from Jennifer too, but that is the nature of fatherhood” (53). The nature of fatherhood does not revolve around keeping secrets about a murder. A father guides and teaches his children the rights and wrongs of the world; he shows his children how to defy life's obstacles. Just as Jennifer is at a complicated obstacle, she goes directly to her father for guidance. This is why so many children when faced with an obstacle go to their fathers for guidance. However, the problem is that Ripley’s way of guiding her is quite literally defying the concepts of prudence. He’s guiding her to sin and live the rest of her life in guilt. In the end, that desire of Ripley’s to be the best father is diminished when he brings these consequences upon Jennifer as well as