Characters

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The Father

The father is depicted either through his own thoughts and actions or through his son’s eyes.

For his son, the father is a coward, someone who lives in fear and seems to have abandoned any hope. He even goes to work without eating, suggesting he may no longer cherish life. Here are some interesting remarks of the son that outline these traits of the father:

Your hand shakes in the morning, Da, because you’re a coward. You think the world is waiting round the c…

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The Son

Like the father, the son’s traits can also be identified from the way he behaves and talks, based on his thoughts and according to his father’s opinion of him.

The son is a person who disrespects his father, hides from him and tries to avoid him:

I hear him groan and see his eyes flicker open. When he sees me he turns away, a heave of bedclothes in his wake. (p. 113, ll.  12-13)

"If I know what you’re doing I don’t worry as much."
"Shit."  ​…