The father

The father is a secondary character in the story “The Sentry” by Téa Obreht and the dominant male figure in Bojan’s life.

Outer characterisation

Bojan's father’s outer characterisation indicates that he worked as an army sentry during a war: “his father was assigned a sentry mastiff called Kaiser, and when his father came back from the front that summer, he brought the dog to live with them.” (ll. 1-2)

Certain hints in the story suggest that the father was a sentry in a prisoners’ camp where people were treated inhumanely: “This was years before newspaper reports surfaced, years before photographs of barbed-wire compounds and starved men herded into lines.” (ll. 44-46)

This is further confirmed by the fact that people in the neighbourhood fear him: “People complained, but always indirectly, with reluctance (...) They knew Bojan's father; they seemed to know better.” (ll. 38-40)

The story’s end reveals that the father died in battle and that he was possibly executed: “Bojan would wonder, years...