Sunday 10 April 2016

I have decided to write concerning the lost comunication between the past and present social normalities that forshadow and cause the Destructions...

A challenging and interesting topic! I will endeavor to provide some suggestions for each of your body paragraphs below:

First Body Paragraph:


You state that this paragraph concerns the disconnection between fathers and sons. Great choice! It looks like you have already chosen specific quotes you will use for this paragraph. May I suggest (if you haven't already done so) laying a solid groundwork for your topic by initially focusing on how and why the relationship between Timothy and his father becomes dysfunctional? For example, you may discuss the fact that Timothy was three and a half years old when his father, Colonel Greg Wellfleet, left to fight in the war. The colonel returned when Timothy was eight. That's a long period of absence.


The author describes that this father-absence coupled with the colonel's intimidating military demeanor further alienated Timothy from his father.



What his father really wanted, he thought, was to own him...and when they undressed in the bath-house his father's tool (Timothy's word) was so massive it reminded him of an animal's and scared him so badly, he could hardly sleep that night.



Colonel Wellfleet's physically powerful body and military carriage presents such a barrier because, as Timothy himself later explains on page 41, Colonel Wellfleet represents everything Timothy is not. Timothy calls his father a 'mesomorph' type. This is the body type most desirable for any man. A man with such a body type is lean, puts on muscle easily (with exercise), and also burns fat easily, especially in the youthful stages of life.


So, the disconnect between Timothy and his father is both physical and spiritual. Timothy conflates his father's fully conditioned body and intimidating manhood with an insatiable sexual appetite. Also, the inimitable Scrivener's tale about fathers with insatiable sexual urges doesn't help matters (page 39). Timothy initially blames his father for his parents' divorce, thinking that his father must have been unfaithful to his mother during the war years. Also, he experiences further disconnection from his father because of his mother's attitude towards her husband.



The boy was aghast, for he was thinking of that huge animal thing of his father's and how awful it must have been for his mother...he sensed fear in her.



So, you can present the disconnect between a father and son as something that can be engendered and compounded by immaturity (in terms of life experience), absence of the father figure during important formative years, and a mystifying, masculine ethos confusing to a juvenile mind. Page 43 describes every teenager's cry, who crave guidance and leadership from their fathers.



Why could he never understand that the last thing I needed from him was any kind of indulgence and the one thing I inwardly craved was the kind of leadership he had given his men at Walcheren?



So, why does this disconnect grow as time continues? Colonel Wellfleet's feels that his own personal shortcomings and failures lend him no moral authority to command and guide his own son into manhood.


On to paragraphs 2 and 3.

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