Reunion: Short Story and Father

Reunion “Reunion” by “John Cheever” is a short story in which there is conflict between the central characters due to their nature. This story is set in New York where Charlie’s father lives. Charlie and his father are the two central characters in this story. The story is told through the eyes of Charlie when he was a young man. Charlie decides to have lunch with his father during a stop between trains while he is on his way from his grandmother’s house to his mother’s. Their reunion does not turn out as hoped by Charlie and the differences in their nature of character causes conflict. The story starts off with the reader being informed of what is happening. The reader is told that it had been three years since Charlie and his father saw each other. The reader finds out a great deal about the father in the first paragraph. The clause, “His secretary wrote”, tells the reader that the father is successful and that he wasn’t concerned enough to write to Charlie himself. The fact that the boy goes to his grandmother’s house sometimes and to his mother’s sometimes tells us that nobody is greatly concerned for the welfare of this child. Reinforcing this statement is the fact that his father doesn’t even write to his son himself. The line, “I felt that he was my father”, shows a sense of Charlie’s longing to have a strong and stable relationship with his father. The use of the word, “father”, also has some powerful connotations of a figure to look up to and rely upon, this word is usually associated with someone that you can look up to and they will help you whenever you are in trouble. The use of this word, due to the connotations of it help to fortify Charlie’s longing to have a fatherly figure to look up to and rely upon. From the first several lines, it is revealed how Charlie wants him and his father to get on well.
Similarly, the line, “I was terribly happy to see him again”, shows Charlie’s happiness as he sees his father after three years, the reader is