my fathers hands

My father’s hands

My father’s hands

My father’s hands is a short story about a man who was illiterate. He got taken out of school and put to a man’s job on a farm at a young age. A man who can’t write his own name, a man who can’t read children’s books  but a man who can do things like saw a square with quick accuracy and firmly wrestle an ornery mule into harness. The narrator describes the man’s hands as exceedingly strong and worthy of doing anything that’s doesn’t include reading and writing.

A character that I found interesting was the father. He was interesting because he never gave up. He never gave up in trying to read and write. “ he slipped away with his sons second grade reader and labored over the words, until they became to difficult”. His wife also tried to help him to read. His hands did him well in road building, factory work and a pipe fitter in a shipyard. “His mind was keen”.  When the shipyard closed he went to the cotton mill which took from his sleeping hours to run the farm. Being literate means that you cannot get a proper job so therefore you don’t get very much sleep. When the cotton mill came to an end he went looking out every morning for a job. He would return at night and say “ they just don’t want anyone who cant take their tests”. He was so determined to get a job and be able to read and write, but he just couldn’t. Relating to my life I have friends that are dyslexic. I can see them struggling with writing the same way I think the father does.

Messages that I took from the story was that how learning disabilities can affect your everyday life and you can’t get rid of it. Illiterate is what the father was described as. Someone who can’t read or write. The father tried and tried to get rid of his disability, he got his wife and a teacher to help him but he just couldn’t get rid of it.” as I held the bottle of nitroglycerin pills, the scene of dad struggling to remove the cap and in desperation trying to break the bottle with a brick flashed painfully before my eyes”. Being illiterate brought death to the father. Not being able to get a childproof cap open meant he couldn’t take the pills and therefore he died. If he could off read the bottle that said push, twist and pull then he wouldn’t have died.another message is that if I ever come across someone like the father then I will help them out and give them a chance.

The father had a challenging life. He had A wife and kids but he couldn’t read or write. He had to look after his family and get money. He couldn’t get money because no one wanted to hire him because of his disability. The only jobs he had shut down and he had to work on the farm late hours, so therefore he couldn’t hang out with his family. “After the meal he had a surprise for dessert, and went to the kitchen where i could see him opening a can. Then everything went quiet”. He could hardly by his kids gifts such as dessert because he couldn’t read the label. He had brought potatoes instead of pears. Many people have disabilities in my life and they struggle to read and write but there disability is not as bad as the father. I understand how hard it would be for him and his family.

“My father’s hands”  best suits the title because it explains pretty much everything in thewhole text. The father’s hands can do many things expect the two things read and write.  The narrator describes the fathers hands as being capable of doing anything with tools, pipes and farm work. The kids say that their fathers hands are exceedingly rough and strong.

The short story “my father’s hands” would be recommended for pretty much anyone who wants to read a good piece of writing but want’s it to be short.