The Theme Of Parents In The Short Story 'The Card'

Many kids nowadays know the feeling of being left alone by their parents. They have unstable influences on them, and have sometimes difficulties telling them what's right and what's wrong. Parents handle situations differently, that can come from life experiences and childhood and even their own upbringing and that has for a fact a big influence on their own children. Parents are very good at reflecting on episodes or stages in their life, and that reflection gets sometimes put in perspective and practice, in which they learn and hand to their kids. Parents can be selfish, and those who suffer most from selfish parents are unfortunately their own kids. But how does the single thirty seven years old parent, in the short story "The Card" handle …show more content…
The short story "The Card", is revolving around a small family consisting of a thirty seven years old mother, a eighteen years old sister, named Laura, and the main character, the little fifteen years old brother, named Mickey. The father left the family at an early age, but left Mickey a card at his ten-years birthday. Mickey was very curious, about the quote in his fathers’ card, he wanted to know why his father put this quote; "No one's got your …show more content…
There is one main plot in the story and only few people involved. The short story stretches over a few pages, it extends over a limited time of period and takes place in a limited number of environments. The composition of this short story is "in medias res", as the story start with a little prologue and the conflict in this story: The only thing I ever got off my old man was a birthday card when I was ten.[...] Mam never talks about him but my sister remembers him."
The conflict is that Mickey wants to know more about his father, the only person who he can get information out of is his sister Laura, but he doesn’t get anything helpful out of her, the only thing Mickey has from his father is the 5 words, from the quote he left him. As a reader you get right into the middle of the action, this is also a characterizing in "Medias Res", due to the length. The whole story is not written in a chronological order, as it jumps back in time, also the whole story is a flashback. The flashback, that the protagonist are reminiscing is the day, he got the card from his father at his ten-years birthday - "life lesson day". The flashback plays a major role in the story, they are very important for the reader. They fill past events and give us a unique insight in the protagonist's life. They also gives us a chance to understand what happened before in time with his family, furthermore we get to know