Analysis of a short story "Sunday in the Park" by Bel Kaufman

"Sunday in the Park" by Bel Kaufman begins on Sunday with relaxed mother and father watching their son, Larry, playing in a sandbox. Its peacefulness is disturbed when another child throws sand at Larry. When warned by Larry 's mother not to throw sand, the overweight child is encouraged to throw as much sand as he wants by his big father. When Larry 's father, Morton, confronts the situation, he is intimidated at the physical presence of the big man and retreats with his wife and son. The wife despises her husband 's weakness. When he criticizes her for not disciplining their son effectively, she attacks him, "You and who else?"Larry 's mother feels happy when her husband and son get together at the park on Sunday. Her husband, Morton, is "city-pale", which shows that he does not go out very much. Morton wears glasses and physically very weak and small. Because this occasion being so rare, she loves the moment until the other boy at the park throws sand at Larry. She tries to tell him not to throw sand but his fat father tells him that he have the right to throw all he wants in public sand box without looking away from his comics. This man is telling his son to be a bully. She feels small and scared at the man 's size looks at her husband, Morton. He gently speaks his thoughts to the man with a shy smile to the man but when the man looks into his eyes, he loses words. He tried to reason with the man, but the man responded with physical threat. The man puts down his comics and starts to threaten Morton to get "the hell out of here" if he does not like it. Morton reads magazines and the fat man reads comics, this shows the difference between their level of knowledge and morals. His wife senses Morton is angry and he gets up, but she does not stop him. Inside her heart, she wants him fight for what she feels is justice. Some normal wives would have stopped the fight but she did not because she may have wanted to see the manly side of Morton. When the man got in front