During these stages, a child is dependent and impressionable, and therefore, any conflict is especially harmful. “Like Him” by Aaron Smith, and “Warren Pryor” by Alden Nowlan are two texts that demonstrate the delicate balance between intentional and unintentional harm, with regards to deep-rooted beliefs. The parents depicted in “Warren Pryor” are undeniably of good heart, which the parents prove when they “slav[e] to free [Warren] from the stony fields” of the family’s farm, in order to give Warren a proper education (Nowlan). Moreover, Nowlan allows the reader to infer that the Pryor family is religious when, in an enjambment, he states: “Sundays. He was Saved”. The specifics of Warren’s family given by the author emphasize the fact that Warren’s parents intend to aid Warren in his future endeavours— that the resentment Warren feels for his parents was undeniably fashioned on accident. However, in “Like Him”, the narrator’s father is not oblivious to his actions; rather, the father is persistent on resenting the narrator. The narrator does not embody his father’s deep-rooted image of a ‘true man’, nor does the narrator act like one, and therefore, the father is constantly displaying no signs of affection, appreciation, or acceptance towards him. The father is described as “disappointed” after the narrator quits basketball, and indifferent as he and the narrator purchase a tractor together. Even after the narrator attempts to “tal[k] deeper” and “ac[t] tougher”, the father continuously criticises and humiliates the narrator by preferring to devote time to “friends who had sons like [the father] wanted”, instead the narrator. At the age of forty, the narrator is left with a sole memory from who was intended to mentor him: how to “fight like his father, like him, like men” (Smith). Through the obliviousness of Warren’s parents, and the relentlessness of the narrator’s father, Smith and Nowlan
During these stages, a child is dependent and impressionable, and therefore, any conflict is especially harmful. “Like Him” by Aaron Smith, and “Warren Pryor” by Alden Nowlan are two texts that demonstrate the delicate balance between intentional and unintentional harm, with regards to deep-rooted beliefs. The parents depicted in “Warren Pryor” are undeniably of good heart, which the parents prove when they “slav[e] to free [Warren] from the stony fields” of the family’s farm, in order to give Warren a proper education (Nowlan). Moreover, Nowlan allows the reader to infer that the Pryor family is religious when, in an enjambment, he states: “Sundays. He was Saved”. The specifics of Warren’s family given by the author emphasize the fact that Warren’s parents intend to aid Warren in his future endeavours— that the resentment Warren feels for his parents was undeniably fashioned on accident. However, in “Like Him”, the narrator’s father is not oblivious to his actions; rather, the father is persistent on resenting the narrator. The narrator does not embody his father’s deep-rooted image of a ‘true man’, nor does the narrator act like one, and therefore, the father is constantly displaying no signs of affection, appreciation, or acceptance towards him. The father is described as “disappointed” after the narrator quits basketball, and indifferent as he and the narrator purchase a tractor together. Even after the narrator attempts to “tal[k] deeper” and “ac[t] tougher”, the father continuously criticises and humiliates the narrator by preferring to devote time to “friends who had sons like [the father] wanted”, instead the narrator. At the age of forty, the narrator is left with a sole memory from who was intended to mentor him: how to “fight like his father, like him, like men” (Smith). Through the obliviousness of Warren’s parents, and the relentlessness of the narrator’s father, Smith and Nowlan