Essay 2 Rough Draft

                As we look at the two articles “Coming Home Again” and “Shooting Dad,” we see similarities arise and differences emerge. Although these two narrators grew up in different times and different areas of America, their lives followed the same parallel tracks but traveling in an opposite direction, arriving at the same spot. Our Narrators describe a life of hurt and distance from their parents and regret of losing precious time with them that they will never get back.

Starting with “Coming Home Again” we follow a young Korean boy through his childhood years admiring his mothers work in the kitchen, lovingly chopping food and cooking meals. Though it is his dream to be like her, she will never let him explore his talents in the food world, pushing him on for a better life and job like his father. As he grows older he and his mother grow apart and after his time at boarding school they know virtually nothing about one another. It is not until his mother is ironically diagnosed with stomach cancer that Chang-rae Lee’s childhood dream comes true and he can finally, not only get the attention and affection from his mother that he craved as a child but also give it back to her.

                In the town of Bozeman, Montana is the setting of our second story “Shooting Dad” and the father-daughter conflict.  As a young girl growing up the daughter of a gunsmith, Sarah Vowell, never saw down the same sights as her father.  From an early age her father pushed her and her “lonely” twin sister to join him in his favorite hobby, guns. After a bad experience at a young age, Sarah realized that guns were not for her. This event kicks off a life that leads her and her father down different roads, siding with opposing political parties and fighting nonstop. They continued to grow apart well in to Vowell’s adulthood until her father’s greatest invention to date, a cannon. In an attempt to retrieve lost time with her father she decides that she would accompany him on its maiden voyage into the mountains to shoot. The noise, smell and excitement on the first shot gave her butterflies and she found herself closer to her father then she had ever been and she was finally able to share a similar passion with him.

                In reading “Coming Home Again” we know that Lee loves to watch his mother cook and takes everything in, learning as much as he can and trying to commit every detail to memory.  When we look at “Shooting Dad” we notice the rebellion of a young girl towards her father and the weapons he makes but we also notice her attention to detail and how much of her father’s work that she knows about, the terms and techniques that he uses.  In these two stories we see that whether on purpose of by osmosis, the two young children learn from their parents.

                We notice that in both stories we find a male-female conflict, Lee with his mother and Vowell with her father. There is another similarity in these stories that both families move to a new unfamiliar place at a young age and it is hard for Lee’s mother and Vowell’s father to adapt to their new lifestyle. This new place that is unfamiliar to these two parents forces them to sink themselves farther into their hobbies, alienating then from their children. They consider their hobbies their safe haven and while Vowell’s father tries to adapt and incorporate his children into his life, Lee’s mother tries to force him out of hers. While one child resists her father’s attempt to befriend her, the other tries to be a part of his mother’s life but is forced out.

                Another similarity in these stories is the absence of the other parent from the headlines.  Vowell’s mother tried to smooth things over between her and her father but to no avail while Lee father tried to let him be his own man but get him to engage in other activities. Vowell’s parents lead a standoff life and allowed their daughters to make their own decisions while Lee’s parents tried to force him into school to better his life only to regret it later.  In both stories we saw that the children discovered something unknown about their parents. Lee, being a clumsy basketball player found out that his mother was the star on her women’s basketball team in Korea. Vowell’s finally understood some the greatness mixed with madness that her father devoted her life to.

                One final similarity between these two stories was their ending. In “Shooting Dad,” Vowell’s father decided that his final wish was to be cremated and shot from his cannon on the opening day of deer season up in the mountains. After their experience with the cannon, Vowell didn’t even have second thoughts about her father’s request and would lovingly carry it out to honor her father. In “Coming Home Again” we see a similar but unspoken request. After Lee came home from school, he took care of his mother and he did everything he could to remember the way she cooked and was happy to have her input. He too, honored his mother by cooking for her not only when she was alive but also after she passed he made sure that the meals tasted as close to hers as he could and he set the table like she did.  He tried to keep her memory alive as best he could and sent her out by carrying on her traditions.

Regret is what ends these two stories, along with a touch of happiness.  Both of our narrators get some closure with their parents, finally understanding them and getting to prove their worth.  Lee comes home from school only to find that he has lost precious years being away from his ailing mother only to find comfort in knowing that she passed at least one thing on to him, her cooking. Vowell, albeit stuck in her political ways finds some enthusiasm for her father’s work and is finally able to connect with him. These two stories have similar roots though they have been reversed; they end in the same spot, regret over the lost years with their parents.