Sean Hruswicki
English 11
24 September 2017
Mr. Barazzuol
This “Plot Point Photo Compilation” will be analyzing the quotes in the short story “Father and Son” by Bernard MacLaverty. The Story is about a troubled teen who has a dysfunctional relationship and communication issues with his widower father. The story takes place somewhere in Belfast, United Kingdom in a troubled neighborhood filled with crime and ambulances at night. The timeline of the story is around the 70s to 80s. To analyze the story plot points in this story one quote for exposition, 5 for rising action, 1 for climax, 1 for falling action and 1 for the denouement were chosen. Each quote explains what happens and why it represents that specific point in the story. A photo that represents both the quote and plot point is also provided.
1.) Exposition
“This is my on who let me down. I love him so much but he wont talk to me” (165)
The father walks into his sons room when he is sleeping and thinks this to himself. This is the exposition because the father introduces us to the main conflict. Which is the dysfunctional relationship between him and him son. The son barely pays attention to or talk to his dad. When they do talk they are fighting or it is never about anything positive.
2.) Rising Action
“I want you to talk to me the way I hear you talk to the people at the door, I want to hear you laugh with me like you used to” (166)
The father tells his son about how he feels about the current state of their relationship. The action rises as feelings are expressed by the father. We know that the relationship between them was good before probably before the mom died.
3.) Rising Action
“I have not seen my son for two days… I hear on the radio he is dead… They give out his description… But he comes in for his tea” (167)
The story hints that the son has died after being missing for two days. The father and the reader are both convinced that the son has died some how. Then the son comes back home alive for some tea. The reader and father both wonder where the son was all this time.
4.) Rising Action
“I have not touched the stuff since I came back right?” (168)
Shortly after the son comes back from mysteriously disappearing for two days, the son mentions he has not touched “the stuff” since he came back from somewhere. The father and son argue some more. The reader learns that the son has a history of drug use. It could be suspected that for the two days he was missing he could have been doing drugs.
5.)Rising Action
“The door swing open and he pushes a hand gun under his pillow” (169)
The father walks into the sons room and catches him hiding a hand gun under his pillow. One would wonder weather he uses it for protection or maybe he wants to kill somebody. When he was gone for two days before somebody may have tried to kill him because the description of the victim was the same as the son. Or maybe it was the other way around and he was the one who killed somebody and somebody may want revenge eventually.
6.) Climax
“There is a bang… my son is lying on the floor… blood is dripping form his nose”
The father hears a bang from the kitchen, he drops a plate and run over. The reader is pretty sure it was a gunshot but the father does not. He sees his son lying on the floor with blood dripping from his nose suspecting that he was punched. This is the climax because it is the highest point of action in the whole story.
7.) Falling Action
“See a hole that should not be there, at the base of his nostril” (169)
It is explicitly implied to the reader that the son in fact got shot and died. The action falls and the father is starting to think that his son has died.
8.) Denouement
“my son, let me put my arms around you”
The story concludes as the father puts his arms around his dead son. Knowing inside that his son is dead and he has lost the last thing he has.
