Analysis of "Reunion" John Cheever

The text under analysys, Reunion, was written by a well-known american novelist and short story writer, John Cheever. His main themes include the duality of human nature. Many of his works also express a nostalgia for a vanishing way of life. In the reunion we can find both of that features.

Reunion  is a story told through the eyes of a young boy, Charlie, who meets with his father after a long period without comunicating with him more than three years. It is set in New York where Charlie’s father lives. We can see that Charlie was really missing his dad, thier relationships are pretty warm.

The title of the text excites many associations due to an abstract meaning in our mind of it. But as we see later a such name of story has ironical notes.

The point of view in the story is first person. The narrator represents us something that happened in the past. The vocabulary is simple. The story was probably written for a wide public cause this problem of sons and fathers is common for many people. May be in this way narrator doesn`t name the father cause it doesn`t matter here. The father is a protoganist. There is uncountable number of such fathers in the Earth.

This text can be divided into three logical parts. Expectations of Charlie before the meeting, the meeting, and roaming through some public catering.

The author touches upon in this text some important themes. The main of them of cause is about the eternal problem of fathers and sons but also are touched a question of  meet and parting and a contradictory personality.

A contradictory person in the story is the father. The author reveals the main character describing him as directly and indirectly. The author prints the image in the reader’s mind of a high-flying businessman. Cheever puts this image with the use of formal language during the communications between Charlie and his father, “His secretary wrote to say that he would meet me at the information booth at noon”. Also author describes the man saying that he possesses with three language: french, italian and german. By the way in the same time the father  looks so selfdetermined to take care of anything. He talks loudly and sarcastic all the time, he has no shame and does whatever he wants. But this contrast is not exclusive in this text. The boy, on the other hand, is calm and peaceful as contrasted to his dad. So author reveals us the full many-sided nature of our world and the world of human nature.

The time, place and atmosphere in this text related to the theme of meet and parting. The boy wrote to his father asking to visit him in a very short window of time. It`s very cute so at this part of the story we are to feel a little bit sorry for Charlie who has been separated from his farther for a while. To enforce the emphasis of the case author uses oxymoron describing the condition of the boy in the moment of meeting: “terribly happy to see him again”. The place and time were chosen by John Cheever not accidentally, a train station is often a symbol of a place with a lot of hellos or goodbyes, and in this particular case, it starts with a warm hello and cold goodbye.

Furthermore the setting of the train station builds a motif of the boy going in a new direction in his life after coming to his dad and relizing something.

The relationships between the father and the son are in the center of whole story. In spite of anxious mood of Charlie before the meeting: “He was a stranger to me”. It all has desappeared by the very meeting:  “But as soon as I saw him I felt he was my father”. This sentence is so powerful because of its use of the word ‘father so we realize all violence and importance of genetic connection between relatives. There are obviose symbols indicating warm relations, they are the simple hug or handshake or the pat on the back that display the caring and love between the father and son. Certainly the dad is authority for his child what is simply visible by a simile: “I knew that when I was grown up, I would be something

like him”. In this way it`s a sorrowfully that the dad gives his son such a vulgar example for imitation. It ends objective that after five odious scenes Charlie can`t stand the nonscence any more and he just leaves his father with a distant goodbye.

The final is the greatest symbol in the story. We know that two heroes wouldn`t meet each other anymore but we don`t know why and it gives us the chance to suppose what is the reason of it. Probably Charlie has taken displeasure to his dad and disappointed at him. If it is so, I would be disappoited a bit in Charlie cause this position is not objective and profound although the farher conducted himself in the very bad manner so the boy could have a right to be dejected but not for whole life. Meanwhile it`s important to understand motives of the father. He wanted to show off in front of his son, but the real reason of this occasion cause the dad doesn`t know how to behave with his child. May be by the same reason he was a little drunk cause he was nervouse too. I don`t try to acquit him but to display his position to be objective before judjing.