A son’s admiration for his father can be one of the most defining characteristics and molding things in a young man’s life. Personally my father has had a huge impact on my life and continues to today. Ernest Hemingway’s character and subject of a number of short stories, Nick Adams, is a man who grew up with a father that failed to be supportive or constructive in a lot of ways for Nick. It was obvious that this relationship was tough for Nick who even contemplated killing his father at one point in time. The story Fathers and Sons though shows the relationship that a grown Nick Adams has with his own son and his son’s views of his grandfather and father. The story touched me because of my own father and the idea that men are formed by their father and often times pick their habits and lifestyle. The relationship between a father and his son can be a beautiful and positive one or it can drastically change the young man and lead to a number of problems and issues for the young man. Nick Adams protected his son for the love of his son and in spite of his father. He truly matured at this moment and decided that he would not be defined by his father once again; his father would not win again.
Sons can be influenced by their fathers in a number of ways. I know growing up I would never sit like my dad, use analogies like him, or even look like him to name a few. To date I now have a number of mannerism and habits that he too has, I speak more like him every day and am beginning to grey like my father did at a young age. Regardless of how I felt, I was meant to be like him and I had little control to change it. Knowing my relationship and the traits that I have picked up from my father, it makes Nick Adams relationship that much more interesting. Nick had a father that taught him little of substance as a young man and was never truly a positive impact on him. This could have easily spilled over to his son and caused Nick to be an apathetic and poor father, but Nick chose a different route.
Nick’s son is curious about his grandfather in the car ride with his father and Nick is faced with a choice about what to reveal about his father. Nick flashbacks to moments in his life where his father had an opportunity to be a positive example but falls short. In one moment his father teaches Nick about grotesque sexual things that no young man should have to learn about. Nick flashes forward back to his son and realizes he is faced with a choice. To tell his son the truth about his grandfather or to leave his son his innocence, an innocence that Nick was not afforded to him. Nick simply tells his son that his father was a great shot and doesn’t tell his son about the things that his father lacked. In Nick’s own way it was a display of love for his son and a moment of reconciliation with his father by not allowing his father’s image to ruin his sons. The act was selfless, humble, and filled with love. Nick finally showed the maturity that escaped him for a large portion of his life. It demonstrated not only the bad affects of a father son relationship gone poorly, but it also showed the blossoming of a newer relationship between Nick and his son that has promise because Nick has learned from the mistakes of his father.
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