I noticed a great deal of similarities between the last two stories from Richard Ford that we were assigned, “Optimists” and “Communist.” Throughout Richard Ford’s collection of short stories, he writes extensively about the relationships between children and their parents, and explores many different variations of parenthood and childhood in this manner. He especially seems to focus on the division that can occur between families, parents, and children, and the effect this has on all parties involved. In these two stories in particular, the narrator is a young boy who was around fifteen or sixteen years old when these stories took place, and neither of them had a father figure that was very prevalent in their lives. Both narrators are also telling these stories as adults in their 40’s, and both of them also appear to narrate these stories as though they are still the children they once were when these events were happening. Although there is a slight difference in their situation, with Frank having his father present and Les having his moms’ boyfriend instead of his biological father, overall their lives are not too different from each other. Both of these young boys have a very detached relationship with their mothers, which I thought provided an interesting point of discussion. The lack of familial connection due to both of these stories involving a parent that was absent or taken away resulted in a lack of understanding in the narrators, and a general detachment from anyone around them. In “Communist,” Les states, “And though I didn’t know why, it occurred to me that Glen Baxter and I would not be friends when all was said and done, since I didn’t care if he ever married my mother or didn’t” (pg. 236). Both Frank and Leslie talk about how they do not care at all about what happens within their families, and they are also apathetic when dangerous or potentially life-threatening events occur in their lives as well. In “Optimists,” Frank and his mother sit in a room with a dead body for a long amount of time, and even in his narration of these events currently he still portrays the situation in a detached and stoic manner, as though his father killing someone was not actually important or relevant to his life at all.
It is very anticlimactic in contrast to how Frank begins the story by saying that “The year, in other words, when life changed for all of us and forever- ended, really, in a way none of us could ever have imagined in our most brilliant dreams of life” (pg. 181). I believe that there is a theme of immaturity in Richard Fords’ writings and how his characters view the world and themselves. The lack of empathy for their families, the contentment with not understanding what was going on in their lives and the unwillingness to recognize the harm that such events brought onto them as young children demonstrates that these narrators have not changed despite how many years have passed since these occurrences. Overall, these two pieces may have different characters and storylines, but in actuality they are more alike than they are different.