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Memorial Day Short Story Essay - Paper

Memorial Day Short Story Essay

In the short stories, “Memorial Day,” by Peter Cameron, and “ Reunion ,” by John Cheever, two teenage boys take similar journeys in life which puts them in much the same situations. In “Memorial Day,” the main character Stephen’s father left him to live with his mother. Stephen and his mother are close, until his mother finds a man and marries him. Stephen dislikes his new stepfather; he doesn’t talk or even acknowledge anybody at home because of his new father’s presence. The way Stephen decides to act at home weakens his relationship with his mother, but he doesn’t care; he just wants life to be how it used to back when his dad was around. The protagonist from the short story “ ...

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from restaurant to restaurant, getting kicked out of every one. Charlie loves his Dad, but he doesn’t know how to respond to how his father acts when he is with him.

Although both sons are emotionally distant from their fathers, their physical distance varies. Stephen lives a lonely, trapped life, in which his father left and he acquired an unwanted stepfather. Charlie experiences collateral feelings when his parents divorce and he doesn’t keep in touch with his father. The difference between these two children is that Stephen’s loneliness came when his father left and stepfather came to live with him; he couldn’t control what was going on around him. Charlie, on the other hand, went to visit his father on the way home from a vacation, and brought himself into disappointment. In the beginning of the story, Stephen says “Across the table from me, drinking Postum is my new stepfather. He wasn’t here last year. I don’t think he was anywhere last year” (Cameron 32). Stephen ...

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Memorial Day Short Story Essay. (2011, March 28). Retrieved January 7, 2026, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Memorial-Day-Short-Story-Essay/96994

"Memorial Day Short Story Essay." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 28 Mar. 2011. Web. 7 Jan. 2026. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Memorial-Day-Short-Story-Essay/96994>

"Memorial Day Short Story Essay." Essayworld.com. March 28, 2011. Accessed January 7, 2026. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Memorial-Day-Short-Story-Essay/96994.

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 3/28/2011 07:56:41 PM
Submitted By: titlicks
Category: English
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 1196
Pages: 5

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