Essay Workshop #2

What theme in common have you observed in "Coming Home Again," and "Shooting Dad"?  What is the significance of the theme?

“Shooting Dad” and “Coming Home Again” are both their very own individual stories. However reading them and analyzing them, I was able to find a bit more in common between the two. They both have a similar theme and significance to each of them. Though they are completely different, they share similarities in the significance of their stories.

“Coming Home Again” is about a family, more so a mother and her son and their journey together as the mom fights cancer. Lee’s mother is an excellent cook, loves to cook and enjoys all around cooking, being in the kitchen and eating good meals. The ironic thing about her illness is that her cancer was in her stomach and has to use a pump that feeds her liquids and medications, lowering her appetite and desire for food. The symbol in this story is how the incredible love for a good meal comes between a mother and her son. In the mothers love for cooking, the careful steps taken to prepare each meal and Lee’s desire to learn the recipes for cooking and to be able to cook like his mother bring them closer than they ever were as a family. The love and relationship between the two, I believe that the authors purpose in writing this story, was to discuss his life growing up with his homely and caring mother and what happens, even though is very devastating, also turns out to be such a positive experience in the end. The title, “Coming Home Again”, explains the returning home to his usual life from boarding school, where his mother regrets sending him because of lost time. Lee is an all around loving and caring son and has always enjoyed his mothers means and took after her in learning how to make and create new ones as well. His desire to cook brought him and his mother closer than ever, even while she was battling cancer.

The story “Shooting Dad” is more of a conflict between a daughter and her father who are completely different in everything they do, yet come to the realization that they are so much alike in the fact that just because their interests are in different things they still have a passion for art and creativity. They couldn’t even hold a conversation without arguing. But amongst all this conflict Sarah found that they had more in common with each other than either of them realized. What they shared was a common passion, a certain dedication to their respective arts.

People who can relate to each other do so because they share some of the same interests, hobbies, outlooks, ideals, or personality traits. They share a mutual respect and understanding enabling them to exist together without major conflict. In other words they are compatible. Throughout her younger years, Sarah was her father’s ideal antagonist. They shared none of the same interests or hobbies. She was a democrat who loved art and painting and drawing and things like that, while her father, a gunsmith, was a republican and had an incredible amount of love for guns.
Sarah failed to see the artist appeal of her father’s trait. A gun was in no way fulfilling to her and never has been growing up. Beyond being an instrument of destruction, firearms had no place in her world. Although she recognized her dad as driven and talented, she failed to appreciate the appeal that firearms process. Music, on the other hand, inspired her much more. Sarah saw a gun as nothing but a tool used to kill and intimidate. To her, there was nothing constructive about a firearm. As they soon began to realize the similarities they shared, still Sarah never grew a passion for guns like her father but after he died, she did recognize them as more of a significance to her life and found herself slightly okay with the art of her father, shooting him out of the cannon, which were the title comes from “Shooting Dad.”

As you can see, these two stories were completely different in their own ways yet still shared similarities of a theme in a sense that each family was brought closer together by the interests each of them shared and experienced as individuals. Because of the mother’s interest and experience in her cooking, Lee became greatly interested in cooking and as a result came to be very close with his mother. And as Sarah and her father shared different arts, realized they had more in common they had originally thought, bringing them closer together.

The significance in both of these stories was the fact that even though you may think you and another person have absolutely nothing in common. Analyze each other more carefully and know that just because you share different interests, and because so, never seem to get along, you may have more in common then you think. Today we as individual don’t always take the time to hear each other out and really see what can become of a friendship or relationship. For example, you could love someone so much, but constantly argue or never seem to get along because of one or many things you believe you just don’t have in common. I’ve been through an experience like this in the past and it ended up falling apart because we were both stubborn people and were never able to see eye to eye and just settled at that. From both of these stories, you can see how giving some things a try that you may of never thought of doing in your entire life may just make or break you or a relationship. It also ties together with the sense of selfishness and stubbornness like I mentioned. For some people, it can be very hard to try something new for someone else, even thought you don’t want to do it, but sometimes when you love someone that much, you should be willing to give up a lot for that person. Even taking the time to find out what you have in common in your differences.