Wolfe

In Tom Wolfe's 1964 essay "Putting Daddy On," he tells a story about a guy who is going to find his son. He uses a lot of metaphors and tells the story from the perspective of another person, Parker, who has lost his son to the "flipnick" life style. When he finds his son he is surrounded by the weight of the life style he has chosen. Nothing in the way of an agreement is made and Parker goes home to his wife sonless.

There are a lot of extended metaphors in this essay. Even one of his characters is noted to speak in ironic metaphors. I think that the way he describes the crumminess of his sons apartment, how "the walls actually have big slags of plaster missing and the lathing showing, as in a caricature of an extremely crummy place" (283). Caricature, by definition, means a picture that ludicrously exaggerates something. I think that comparing his son's apartment to a caricature of a crummy place also makes his son a caricature of a crummy son. Also, the way they have created names for each other, like Jaywak and Aywak, showing that they're really trying to create something new and different, and I think that when Parker addresses his son in this manner he is poking fun at their attempt at rebellion. Overall, Parker just thinks his son is unoriginal and crummy, just like his apartment, just like his "rebellion", and just like his crummy friends. I get the feeling that he didn't want to find his son, that he was just "putting daddy on", putting that roll on, to make it seem like his son was the guilty party. Now he can tell his wife that he tried, but his son just wouldn't budge.

I think it's interesting that every generation the different groups get called an interesting new word. "Beatniks" and "Hippies" are good examples of these names. Have you ever been called something totally bizarre by a grandparent or other member of the family?