On Arm Wrestling with my Father by Brad Manning - Book Report/Review Example

"On Arm Wrestling With My Father" The poignant, tough-love dictum of Brad Manning's best-known work belies a glaring social issue that is a prevalent yet continuously undermined facet of everyday family life. A lot of times there are numerous cases where we see doting fathers being hopelessly ignored by their reticent children. The essay centers around an admiring, proud son and his cold, indifferent father, along with the glaring fracture in their relationship. In so many cultures around the globe, the father-son interaction oftentimes proves to be a sort of unspoken rivalry, a continuous bout of machismo where neither one will give way, and yet in so many ways this continues to remain unaddressed. Manning uses rhetoric in such a way that he repeatedly uses metaphors to address his relationship with his father, most of which are centered around arm wrestling. He calls his father "the arm", or "the master with clenched fists", and within that context reflects on how the pendulum of superiority and dominance in their relationship has slowly swung towards him. Upon closer examination, this is a fact which his father is either oblivious to, or chooses to be indifferent about. Does the rhetoric utilized suffice In my opinion it was effectively wielded given the context and tone of the essay. This is an essay about a child's relationship with his father, the difficulties they had in reconciling their affection for one another, and the gradual shifts in perspective as the child grew older. Manning sounds very solemn, even poignant in outlining his experiences. Hence, the numerous metaphors and "special names" he uses in addressing his father are appropriate. Why Asking one to reveal so much about one's strained childhood is already a stretch in itself. This is not an easy task to do, and you would have to conjure up some Freudian machinations to get to the very bottom of those unconscious reaches of Manning's head. The point is, Manning was kind enough to be candid and share this with all of us without any qualms at all. The rhetoric he uses in describing his father is more of like his unconscious safety shell, a way of facing his past without directly addressing it. It was well-timed and effectively rendered, and makes us think about our own father-son relationships in a whole new different perspective. The author offers a clear point of how he had immensely parlayed these experiences into his own adult life. When he offers that "the man would win" it highlights just how impersonal and cold their relationship had turned out. Arm wrestling had become their only form of communication, and as he grew older his gradual erosion into his father's superiority base only contributed to the strain. This is what happens when a son grows up into an environment with an "alpha male" dominating the entire household. Somehow, reading between the lines of Manning's haunting prose, one would see his seemingly unspoken regret at how the entire thing played out. One would get the impression that this his childhood experiences served as the definitive force in molding his latter-day character, and that this was something he would not subscribe to as a parent. The use of flashbacks have always been considered to be a double-edged sword. It could either greatly augment one's narrative, or completely take a story off-tangent. In this essay Manning has effectively interjected his heartfelt experiences during the course of the narrative to further illustrate the high and low points of his relationship with his father. Going through their experiences, while his father comes off as the type who would never say "I love you" to his son. However, through his seeming drive to impart life lessons through arm wrestling, his tough love approach seems to have rubbed off on his son, albeit after many years of soul-searching and eventual realization. The author offers "clear as day" recollections of the events in question, much like these experiences merely happened the day before. It is blatantly apparent that his childhood tug-of-war with his father had a profound and lasting effect on him. It is but a natural psychological reaction that we keep all the special things that happen to us in a little private place in our subconscious, much like a personal file folder reserved for a special use. These recollections are clear, concise, and highly detailed. And while we have to give the due adjustments in respect to the author's writing skill, it still is a very detailed piece of work. It offers numerous instances where Manning would delve into specific events and details, and he would render it in such a way that he would seem that he was jumping out of the page screaming "this is an important event in my life". The sequencing jumps in and out of straight narrative between flashbacks, and in my opinion this type of sequencing does not detract from the flow of the story. Essentially the story reflects on how this cold, uneasy tension and a child's wanting for affection is leveraged off unspoken love. Obviously, his father was a very dominating figure in the household, and was not used to having his superiority challenged or questioned. As his son grew older, his shrinking level of dominance led him to continually challenge his son to these arm-wrestling matches. The author meanwhile, in his zest to please his father gladly played along. While we are tempted to believe that his father was merely stoking his perturbed ego, there lies the element of "tough love" that we were discussing earlier. Perhaps in his heart of hearts, the father was merely instilling a sense of discipline and resiliency into his boy without him even knowing it. And the boy caught on to it later on, even referencing to these in light humor. As it is, these manly sessions turned out to be the very expression of love itself that the author had been yearning for. In utilizing his metaphors,. Manning was trying to elucidate the larger-than-life persona that his father embodied. And this was never better manifested than in their arm wrestling sessions. Through arm wrestling, beneath that faade of cold-hearted competitiveness lies a father trying to reconcile both his challenged ego and his repressed feelings for his son. For Manning, growing up under this set-up seemed like the proverbial Catch-22. If he had lost, he was never good enough and if he had won he would have this eerie feeling deep down inside that he would be hurting his father through one way or the other. We are all glad to have witnessed that in the end his unrequited love for his father stood the test of time, and what we are left with is a touching, heartfelt illustration of a phenomena that is none too uncommon in today's contemporary society. To conclude, in my opinion this is a well-written tribute to the author's love for his father, along with all the trials and tribulations that came with it. Its is a warm retrospective that enjoins us somehow to all look back our relationships with our fathers, and to appreciate the love and care that was bestowed upon us long ago, unsaid or not. Bibliography 1. Manning, Brad.(2005) Arm Wrestling With My Father. The Bedford Reader: Bedford/St.Martins. Read More