The Drunkard

"The Drunkard" by Frank O'Connor

"'My brave little man!' she said with her eyes shining. 'It was God did it you were there. You were his guardian angel'" (O'Connor, page 351).

The first piece of the story that caught my attention was the separation between Mr. Dooley and the father. Although they were from different classes of the society they lived in, both Mr. Dooley and the father were able to get to know each other personally. I was confused though when Father did not want to go to Dooley's funeral. When he got there though, a man who did not know Dooley was there yet Father did not want to come there at all even though he was friends with Dooley. Another disturbing and confusing action of the story came with Father's work. Father did not want to miss half a day of work to go to Dooley's funeral yet was fine getting drunk the night before work and not going to work. The ethics of Father perplexed me in many of the descisions but specifically his differing opinion about skipping work. Another thing I noticed with the story was the focus of the society. It was fine for Father to be drunk and skip work. When the son got drunk, all the attention shot on him when it was really his father's fault. Like in our society, things seem to go unnoticed when an adult does it but if a child does the same thing, more attention is placed on them rather the adult. Just like the attention being on the child, the title seems to display the direct attention to the child rather than the father.