"The Drunkard"

"The Drunkard"
Frank O'Connor

I really wish I was better at recognizing humor in writing, because this short story was supposedly full of humor. I however found the story to be rather odd, which I guess could be considered funny. The title of the short story is "The Drunkard", though the father is an alcoholic, I do not think based on the story that the title is referring to him. Instead, I would say that Larry would be "the drunkard" in the story though, because he is the one who truly gets drunk. However, the son is not a drunk, and at the end of the story his mother even says, '" It was God did it you were there. You were his guardian angel'" (O'Connor, 351). Furthermore, I do not think the title was seriously meant because the father had stopped for a period of time, and the son was protecting the father.

In a family unit, people give of themselves to better other persons in the family. The son in the short story saved his father by drinking his pint. The drink made the son physically ill, but he protected his father from making a serious mistake. For the family, the father's alcoholism was dangerous to deal with, so it was important to keep from entering into that dangerous environment.

A little bit off topic but still within the story, the boy mentions how lonely it is to have a kitchen without a clock. I would like to invite people to ponder on this topic. It would be rather odd, would it not?