First-Person Fiction

In his short story “Communist,” Richard Ford writes about Les, a 16-year-old boy who is hard to pin down as a character. He seems unsure and hesitant, but also doesn’t seem to question anything asked of him. This is intentional, of course, as Ford has written an excellent depiction of any 16-year-old, someone who is not entirely their own person. Les is caught in the middle of opposing forces, often opting to just do as he is told.

Throughout the story, Les is caught in the middle between his mother Aileen and the men she dates (his father and Glen). Although he never willingly enters the conflict, he is witness to all of it, and it affects him. Telling his mother that he wants to go hunting with Glen (Ford  217) wedges him right into the existing battle of power between Glen and Aileen. This is a conflict he never fully understands, but it nonetheless affects his relationship with both his mother and Glen. He feels distant from his mother and, despite seeing her reactions to mistreatment, never quite understands her.

To tell the truth, I didn’t know why she was so mad at him. I would’ve thought she’d be glad to see him. But she suddenly seemed to hate everything about him.

Les never really describes how he’s feeling throughout the short story, usually only what he witnesses. So all the arguments and conflict don’t seem to affect him — until, that is, he blows up at Glen. He says:

Though it is true that I wanted to hit him, hit him as hard in the face as I could, and see him on the ground bleeding and crying and pleading for me to stop.

This outburst comes as such a surprise because of Les’s previous lack of emotion. But this feels very representative of teenagers, especially teenage boys; they bottle up all their emotions and refuse to acknowledge them until they surface as rage or violence.

But what else contributes to this outburst besides being surrounded by conflict? Les is constantly influenced by everyone around him. He doesn’t really seem to get opinions of his own. The authority figures in his life, his mom and Glen, make all the decisions. Aileen tries to keep him from going on the trip altogether and makes him agree to go to college. Glen pretty much ignores him, only asking him one question about himself during their hunting trip, and Glen then makes it all about himself.

In the end, this story is about a quiet boy who is pushed around by Glen and Aileen and who then has a breaking point. But readers also come to understand that although he admittedly doesn’t understand his mother, and has not talked to her in many years, he is fiercely protective of her, almost to the point of violence.