Similar Qualities and Circumstances of Characters in Bauschs and Farahs Stories - Essay Example

? Similar Qualities and Circumstances between Melanie Ballinger in Richard Bausch’s “Aren’t You Happy For Me?” andthe Unnamed Narrator in Nurrudin Farah’s “My Father, The Englishman, and I” Family problems seem to be a consequence of the psychological issues and challenges that revolve around each family member and how hard it is to deal with them. In most families with problems, the most unfortunate thing is that although the parents are the ones with personal issues, it is the children who suffer from these. Both Melanie Ballinger in Richard Bausch’s “Aren’t You Happy For Me?” and the Unnamed Narrator in Nurrudin Farah’s “My Father, The Englishman, and I” share similar qualities and circumstances in the face of family conflicts. In both stories, each child defies his or her parent’s authority. In “Aren’t You Happy For Me?”, Melanie Ballinger defies her father when she decides to get married with William Coombes, a literature professor who is forty years older than she is and even nineteen years older than her own father. It seems obvious that Melanie knows that her father would be very upset because she employs several delaying tactics before she tells her father how old her fiance is. This means that she knows that he would be hurt. Nevertheless, the reason why she has still bothered to tell him about it is only out of “family courtesy,” which she really tries to emphasize at the end of the story (Bausch). It also seems that Melanie does not trust her own father and this could be the reason for her defiance of his authority. In fact, she shows this distrust when after her father asks her to let William talk to him, she immediately asks him, “Do you promise not to yell at him?” (Bausch). This is clearly a sign that Melanie does not trust her own father and perhaps this is the reason that she challenges his authority. Perhaps, the ultimate sign that she does not respect her father’s authority anymore is when she tells him, “I would’ve been better than you were, Daddy, no matter how hard it was” and “If it wasn’t for Mom, we wouldn’t be [coming over for a visit]” (Bausch). Both these lines imply that Melanie does not anymore respect her father’s authority and she would even consider she and her mother to be greater than him in authority. The unnamed narrator in “My Father, The Englishman, and I” actually shows the same defiance of authority but he directs it towards his own father at first, and later on towards his own mother. At first, the narrator’s mother as well as the narrator himself would both hate his father’s kowtowing to the Englishman. Moreover, the narrator would find it ironic that his father would be “kindness itself to non-family [but] temperamental with his dependents” (Farah). Such hatred and temperament is obviously hated by the narrator, and he expresses such hatred, resentment and defiance of his father’s authority by resisting eating the boiled sweets that the Englishman sends along with his father. However, such defiance changes in the second half of the story, after the narrator’s mother dies, he begins defying her legacy by taking the side of his father and the Englishman. At this point in his life, he accepts a new allegiance as the Englishman “embraced” him (Farah). However, although his mother has died, the narrator regrets that he was not able to do anything to prevent the clan elders from agreeing to the treaty of the English: “Had I been present, or had my mother been consulted, maybe this would not have occurred” (Farah). Although perhaps the narrator has had no choice but to take his father’s side when his mother died, deep down maybe he did not want this change to happen. Perhaps, there is some reason why Melanie Ballinger and the unnamed narrator has shown defiance of their parents’ authority, and it could have been because they do not understand their parents. The reason could rather be something deeper. Both characters have parents who are dealing with personal issues. Melanie’s father has personal issues with his wife about an impending divorce, and perhaps the reason why he seems so grumpy with his daughter and overcritical of her fiance is that “he had news of his own to tell” (Bausch). John Ballinger is actually an unhappy man and he may have projected this unhappiness on the fact that his 23-year-old daughter is getting married to a 63-year-old man. The situation that involves his daughter and her fiance may actually be already hard for him to bear, but his sarcasm and his calling William a “statutory rapist” may have been instances of overreacting, perhaps because of his own personal issues with his own wife (Farah). On the other hand, the mother of the unnamed narrator is also suffering from her own personal issues especially because as the author states, “[her] undistinguished aversion to the white man was no secret” (Farah). What this mother may not have realized is that through her character and prejudice against the English, she is indirectly teaching her son to harbor a grudge towards those people that she hates. The son, who is the unnamed narrator now, has somehow realized in the end that he was defying his own father and the Englishman especially when he found out that “[he] had a great urge to eat the sweet but didn’t in deference to [his] mother’s unspoken wish” (Farah). Even as a young child, the unnamed narrator has realized his own mother’s prejudices against the English and her being unreasonable for having such prejudices. In fact, she should have been thankful for the fact that her husband was a translator to the Englishman but she rather took everything negatively. Perhaps such personal psychological issues that the parents in both stories are grappling with may be the reason why these parents are full of pride. John Ballinger, Melanie’s father in “Aren’t You Happy For Me?”, seems to have a pride that obviously shows in his sarcasm. The first display of arrogance is with the name “Granddaddy,” with which John suggests Melanie should call her fiance (Bausch). In fact, he sarcastically emphasizes the age gap between him and William when he talks to the latter and tells him, “Oh, you needn’t ‘sir’ me…After all, I mean I am the goddam kid here” (Bausch). However, what John does not realize is that William is just being polite to him. John’s pride has somehow blinded him from the fact that, as an older person, William had no obligation to show respect to him. Perhaps, the worst act of pride and contempt that John shows William is calling him a “statutory rapist” after asking him a series of insulting and humiliating questions that he could not possibly ask in person but only over the phone (Bausch). Nevertheless, despite how badly John treated William, the latter has never been rude to the former. The pride of the unnamed narrator’s mother in “My Father, the Englishman, and I” is just as unreasonable as Melanie’s father. In fact, the unnamed narrator and his family are just poor Africans who are trying to make both ends meet. Nevertheless, the unnamed narrator’s mother would still even show such contempt towards the Englishman, who was obviously the one indirectly responsible for their survival or for their prestige in the community. Without the Englishman there would have been no job for her husband. She therefore has no right to accuse her husband of “political pimping” (Farah). Just like John Ballinger’s unreasonable pride towards his daughter’s fiance who was even trying to be respectful to him no matter how much younger he is than him, the unnamed narrator’s mother is unreasonably critical and contemptuous of a foreigner who is helping them and of a husband who is feeding them through the foreigner’s intervention. The personal issues that the parents of the main characters are dealing with as well as the unreasonable pride that they exemplify somehow pose as great challenges to their children. Both main characters have their own challenges to deal with. In Bausch’s “Aren’t You Happy For Me?”, Melanie have a number of challenges that she has to contend with. First, she has to deal with a father who is overcritical of her husband and who is dealing with issues of his own, especially his divorce with his wife. The impending divorce between John and Mary Ballinger is also another thing that Melanie has to deal with because she is a child. In fact, one can see her concern about her parents’ decision to have a divorce when she tells her own father on the phone, “You had something you had to tell me” (Bausch). This is a sarcastic way of telling her father that he concealed something very important from her and something that she is supposed to know in the first place. Aside from these, a third concern of Melanie, but perhaps the least of her concerns, is the pregnancy and the 40-year gap between her and her husband. As for the unnamed narrator in “My Father, The Englishman, and I,” one of the challenges he has to face is perhaps how to deal with reality and how to give justice to his dead mother’s “unspoken wish” of disloyalty and contempt towards the Englishman (Farah). The unnamed narrator is somehow living in a world of regret since the elders of the clan signed the treaty with the English without anyone stopping them or convincing them to do otherwise. However, although he believes that “had [he] been present, or had [his] mother been consulted, maybe [the signing] would not have occurred,” it is pretty much obvious that both he and his mother, even if she were alive, would still not have changed the outcome of the circumstances (Farah). The unnamed narrator glorifies his mother too much without even considering whether she is unjustified in his contempt and hatred towards a foreigner who has given his father a decent and prestigious job. Thus, dealing with the reality of the situation is indeed something that the unnamed narrator must deal with. Perhaps, he has to find a way to give justice to his dead mother’s wishes without wallowing in regret. Things happened because they had to happen, and this is what the unnamed narrator should learn how to accept. The similarities between Melanie Ballinger in Richard Bausch’s “Aren’t You Happy For Me?” and the unnamed narrator in Nurrudin Farah’s “My Father, The Englishman, and I” are numerous and all of these similarities center around how they psychologically deal with family conflicts that beset them. First, both characters express defiance over their parents’ authority, which they believe are only acts of overreacting. Second, their parents have psychological and personal issues that seem to explain their own habits of unjustly expressing contempt towards the innocent. Third, their parents have an unusually unreasonable pride that seems to be a consequence of their personal issues. Lastly, because of these problems concerning the parents and because of the consequences of these problems, both Melanie Ballinger and the unnamed narrator have numerous challenges to solve on their own. It is therefore true that most problems in the family are made bigger by psychological issues that beset each member. Top of Form Bottom of Form Works Cited Bausch, Richard. “Aren’t You Happy For Me?” 2012. The Independent. 14 Oct. 2012. Farah, Nurrudin. “My Father, The Englishman, and I.” 1999. Uct.Ac.Za. 14 Oct. 2012. Read More