59 pages • 1 hour read
George SaundersA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
In first-person plural narration, adult children relay the story of a pole their father used as yard decoration. Their father altered the display with each holiday and they say, “The pole was Dad’s one concession to glee” (29), relaying all the ways he was otherwise fastidious and strict. After the children move out of the house, their dad begins decorating the pole in strange, elaborate ways; after his wife passes, he dresses it as Death, then later begins decorating it with personal mementos from his childhood. Finally, he places sticks in the yard and connects them to the pole with string, lining the strings with apologies and admissions. When he dies, the children sell the house to a couple who throw the pole and sticks away.
This vignette is an exploration of the failure of empathy between adult children and their parents. The first-person plural point of view establishes a division between the shared perspective and experiences of the children and then their father, who functions as both enigma and authoritarian to them. It’s clear that the speakers understand what’s happening with their father—he is grieving, then filled with regret toward his children—but they are unsympathetic to his emotional state or what he is trying to communicate through his decoration.
By George Saunders
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life
George Saunders
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
George Saunders
In Persuasion Nation
George Saunders
Liberation Day: Stories
George Saunders
Lincoln in the Bardo
George Saunders
Pastoralia
George Saunders
American Literature
View Collection
Books on Justice & Injustice
View Collection
Books that Feature the Theme of...
View Collection
Challenging Authority
View Collection
Class
View Collection
Class
View Collection
Community
View Collection
Family
View Collection
Good & Evil
View Collection
Mortality & Death
View Collection
National Book Awards Winners & Finalists
View Collection
New York Times Best Sellers
View Collection
Power
View Collection
Satire
View Collection
The Best of "Best Book" Lists
View Collection