The text under analysis is a short story “Reunion”, written by a master of this kind of

prose, John Cheever, whose stories are basically focused on Americans of middle class,
revealing their dreams, aims and failures. The “Reunion” is not an exception, being the kind of
psychological story, representing usual people’s emotions and feelings in front of an ambiguous
(амбигьюэс) life situation, namely the situation, happening around a son and dad. Its genre is
realistic, as the problem of parents and children is an eternal topic of life, found a way out in
numerous creations. Besides the parent-children problem the story touches upon the issue of
unjustified expectations and dashed hopes, that tints the story with a dramatic tone, although
its beginning is quite hopeful and joyful for the main character. Thus, the theme of the story is
parent-children relationship. The subject matter is abandoned child’s hopes. The idea is to show
that child’s love is unconditional, but there should always be feedback, otherwise it may lose its
power. The events of the story, specifically the meeting of a son and dad happen after three
years break in their communication, that rises a question towards dad and his attitude towards
his son, who, in his turn, is the initiator of the meeting. Thus, this meeting may be considered as
the second chance of their relationship, about what the title also shouts, and here comes the
problem: should we anyway try to restore broken relationship or is it better to leave the
attempts and let hopes go, as well as resentments?
The story takes place in Grand Central Station, in New York city, the busiest city of
business people. And there, on the Station, in the congestion of people, in the place where they
meet and part, Charlie suddenly feels his meaningless among this reality, and, what’s more
important and the saddest – his meaningless to his dad.
Charlie, a young and innocent guy waits for his dad, a man of business, whom he hasn’t seen
for 3 years, hopeful for a glad reunion. They meet at the station and dad suggests his son dining
out, that appears to be not an easy deal because of the dad’s intolerance and uncontrollable
desire to show off. They change a restaurant after restaurant until the time of Charlie’s
departure comes. He tries to say goodbye to his parent, who, in its turn, is bothered with other
more interesting for him things.
Concerning the conflicts of the text, one may decide there is an external conflict of son
and dad, but practically there is no evident conflict between them, especially because of
father’s ignorance of his son’s real feelings. Thus, there may be found an internal conflict:
throughout the text Charlie evidently sees his dad’s indifference towards him, but probably
tries to give him excuses in order to catch at least a bit of his attention.
The story is written in the 1 st person narrative, from Charlie’s point of view and though he
avoids expressing his feelings directly, he uses stylistic devices to picture his relation to his dad,
to portray the dad himself, to describe the events and to represent the atmosphere of the
meeting, which in common helps the reader to make guesses about the writer’s personal
feelings, too.
According to the composition the text may be divided into 5 traditional parts:
exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and the denouement. The exposition is the first
paragraph of the story, an expectation of the meeting, in which part Charlie’s feelings towards
his father reveal, along with the essence of a child’s pure and unconditional love: he hasn’t
been with him for years, but despite all the hardships between them, he feels him being his
father, his “fresh and blood” his “future and his doom”, which metaphor makes the reader
emphasize Charlie before the meeting with beloved dad. An oxymoron “terribly happy to see
him again” indicates Charlie’s great excitement in this very part. However, some facts,
concerning Charlie’s dad, may alert the reader from here already, like the secretary, making an
appointment with the son instead of dad himself, or dry handshake instead of warm dad’s hugs
after a long parting. The paragraph ends with parallel constructions – “I hoped that someone
would see us together. I wished that we could be photographed. I wanted some record of our
having been together”, that strengthen the significance of the meeting for the boy.
The rising action begins with the second paragraph and here comes numerous motions
from a café to café, to which lead Charlie’s dad permanent displeasure with the service or
something else, that becomes the second signal for a thinking reader, for would you pay
attention to details around you, when the most important “detail” is in front of you – your own
child, who’s been waiting for this meeting for years. The discomfort of Charlie because of the
sur of the situation, especially dad’s behavior, is described by means of antithesis - “His
boisterousness in the empty restaurant”. Here come the dialogues, but not between the two
men, two relatives, but between a businessman and the service workers from place to place.
The repetition of the phrase “I followed my father out of that restaurant into another” shows
Charlie’s frustration of happening, gradual deliberation of it and, finally, acceptance.
Then here comes the denouement, when Charlie’s phrase "I have to get my train" cuts
his dad’s endless stream of rudeness short.
In the following rising action one may find the repetition of the appeal “Daddy”, to
which Charlie includes the last remainders of his love, as the decision is made already: they’ll
never meet again. Charlie has been ready to make plenty of steps towards his dad, but he
hasn’t been able even to understand it. So is it worth wasting a person’s power energy of love
to someone who is not ready to accept it? Charlie understands it isn’t.
Structurally the text may be divided into 3 parts: the expectation, the meeting and the
goodbye.
The protagonist of the story is a young boy, Charlie, who feels lack of dad’s love and who
is really eager to fill this gap, saying by means of metaphor that no matter what he is his flesh
and blood, his future and his doom. While passing his dad’s city, New York city, one of the
busiest cities, where he appears to be the little unimportant point, even to his beloved father,
Charlie wants to grab at least half an hour with his dad at the station and this fact helps us to
understand how much hope he has for this meeting. Charlie has missed his dad a lot, he literally
enjoys his smell, that the simile “and I smelled my father the way my mother sniffs a rose” says
to the reader. The boy seems to be innocent and pure, for though we don’t know the details of
his parent’s divorce, it’s clear that the boy doesn’t blame his parent for anything and reaches
out to him, despite his father seems to never have tried to establish contact with the son. This
meeting appears to be decisive for Charlie, probably he keeps silence while his dad’s squabbles
in cafés, not trying to stop him, because he awaits the moment when dad notices him, his son,
but not the waiters or service. Charlie doesn’t also play along with dad’s humiliation of the
service workers, that makes the reader to understand that such behavior is alien to him. Charlie
feels frustration, disillusionment of these meeting. The repetition of the appeal “Daddy”, that
comes from Charlie, probably shows these last droplets of love, that he presents to his dad, as
by the moment the train comes, Charlie has probably made the decision. The decision not to
meet his father again. In the beginning he says he knows someday he would be like his father,
and after the collapse at cafes he probably understands how they really differ.
The antagonist of the story, Charlie’s dad, is the man of business, he has a secretary,
who makes an appointment even with his son, he his own club, but unfortunately, he has
absolutely no time and interest for Charlie. The author uses vivid stylistic devices to describe
Charlie’s dad as a serious and influential person, namely enumeration “whiskey, after-shave
lotion, shoe polish, woolens, and the rankness of a mature male”, but all the adjectives describe
him as a businessman, there’s no word about him being a father. All the reader may watch is a
3-year old gap in this fragile son-dad relationship. He is an impulsive person, that is shown by
means of numerous exclamation marks in his direct speech and by plenty of swear words “let’s
get hell out of here”, “goddamn”. He is not accustomed to be contradicted, that his explosive
reaction to the waiter’s irony “"I just thought you might like to know where you are" show. He
constantly uses foreign phrases, like it seems he tries to show off not only with his money and
position, but with his wit, too. Throughout all their movements among cafes, he doesn’t honor
his son even with a worthy word, this fact is not stated by the author directly, but for the
reader this appears to be the decisive detail about him to judge him properly.
Thus, here may be defined a problem of an additional chance: should we anyway try to restore
broken relationship or is it better to let the resentments go, as well as hopes. Some people
believe that the one who’s betrayed or left you once should be cut out of life, while others
think there are no saint people and everyone deserves a second chance. It’s pretty fair that in
questions concerning people’s relationship there’s no unified opinion or advice, but I’ll try to
express my point of view on the problem, that is there should always be some place for the
second chance.
At first, there is probably no human being, who’s never made mistakes. Mistakes make people
being people, shaping a person’s character. Furthermore, sometimes a person doesn’t
understand the circumstances of another person’s actions properly and doesn’t even try to
figure the problem out, while sometimes there may be extenuating circumstances.
Nevertheless, one can consider this problem from another angle. First of all, the one who’s left
or betrayed you once, will do it again. More important is that some people that have been
offended believe that their offenders don’t deserve their precious time and their nerves. And at
last, one may really think that unforgiveness can teach traitors to treat other people properly,
being careful to other’s feelings. Despite my respect for this opinion, I cannot share it because I
believe it’s better to give a person the second chance and in case of a failure never blame
yourself for not have done it, then not ty try to and to regret about the gone bond.
Anyway, as it’s already been stated, there is no common formula of conduct in situations of
betrayals or hurts, which have led to parting. All in all, each person decides better for him or
herself whether to give a second chance or not, taking all the circumstances into consideration.