An Essay of the Gaston Story

Family happiness is simply known that the parents and their children can live together, share their fun, difficulties and sadness with each other. As a matter of fact that nothing’s perfect; there’s still a lot people don’t have a happy family as they wish, there’s still many broken homes around us and the children is always the victim of the conflict from their parents, particularly here is the family in the short story “Gaston” by William Saroyan. Throughout this story, the author gives us about the importance of a discipline and an influence of the parents to their children. They both have the responsibility to help their children shaping a good characteristic for themselves, to educate them to be a good person in the future.
The father was very happy when his daughter visited him after a long time. He had nothing special for his daughter but he did thoughtfully buy some peaches as a meal to welcome her back. He gave his little girl a good-looking peach and took the flawed one for himself. In the flawed peach, there was a bug came out from the cavity. The father didn’t fear this bug; he looked at it as if it was his acquaintance and friendly named it Gaston. The image of poor Gaston seemed like the father: Gaston used to have everything in the seed of the peach; it had been a very comfortable house for him but now he had nothing as the father used to have a family, a sweet home before with his wife and daughter together but he lost it. Both of them felt pain, fear, and a solitary life when they lost everything, which meant a lot to them. Thus, the father didn’t care about how ugh Gaston was; moreover, it was a handsome boulevardier to him. He believed that Gaston had a right to have home, to be loved and treated well like anyone else. In order to make his daughter believe that, he ate the rest of the peach without hesitation just to show the girl the open halves, where Gaston belonged. The girl was so naïve, she believed in what her father said and that was a purpose of the father. He didn’t holler when Gaston came out, he didn’t squash it; he felt sorry for Gaston and sympathized with it in front of his daughter to help her to learn to love and esteem those live in poor condition. An image of the peach symbolizes home and love. The father lived in a poor house; he had nothing valuable in that. He himself just had a blue-and-white jersey, no coat, and shoes and socks... but he feels pleased with it, as Gaston felt comfortable with the flawed peach. He made a positive impact on the little girl that helped her to know that the flawed peach was a happy home for Gaston, it was not good, it was bad enough for everyone to throw but it was still a perfect place for Gaston. This was his world and his own. The father is not only a kind-hearted but also a wise man; in just a very short moment with his daughter, he borrowed the image of the flawed peach to make a lesson for his little girl about the life that we have to appreciate of our life, especially our home because it will take much time for us to build it up again when we lost it or even we never have a chance to do that. He wanted his girl to respect everything she has even just a small thing. Furthermore, the way he ate the flawed peach as if it was so good, so sweet to let her know that we shouldn’t waste food if it is still fine to eat because there are so many poverty-stricken people around the world. A mother in this story can be considered to a “holler”. She seemed to prefer a high and rich life. She was very interested in the parties & there was always a lot of them New York. When the mother phoned to her daughter and heard about the silly story of a Gaston bug, a peach with “people”, she hollered out and got angry with the father and thought that he must be crazy. Her first reaction helped the girl start to change her recognition about what her father said. The girl was getting excited about Gaston that made the mother feel uncomfortable because she didn’t want her daughter to live with the father; everything he did was not good because she didn’t believe in him and vice versa. The daughter was put in the middle situation; it was hard for her to decide to follow whom of them. Her family was broken & she was too young to realize where she wanted to be. However, just after some minutes talking, the daughter squashed the bug without thinking; she quickly forgot about a peach with people and got ready to come back to New York because in her mind, the poor house of the father looked a flawed peach – a house of Gaston was not for her. The mother could have taught this kind of thought of the girl. The mother, she herself helped to put a distance between the father and the girl; they became strangers as those who living in two different world. The father loves his little girl so much but he hardly express to her, those warm hugs were replaced by shook hands, no more words to share even though he really wanted to and that was the way they say goodbye. This shows us how strongly the mother influent to her daughter through her thoughts, character, a love for her father. “A holler” always shouts out whenever they see the bug; they never accept it and throw it as always so that it’s hard for them to pay compassion to anyone in a lower status than them. We can imagine that if the daughter lives with her mother for a long time, how would she be? If she lives with her father, she would become a high-minded one; at least she can learn the best things from “the bad” from her father rather than she learns the worst things from “the good” of her mother.
The Story gives us many good values of our life. We know more about the importance of family and the importance to decide whom is good for us to learn from in life. Moreover, to learn to love everyone & everything is to bring for ourselves a meaningful life as well as the father does and try to not to be like the mother because once we put a discrimination on something, we start a fire to destroy our love.