'Compass and Torch' og 'Jimmy Corrigan' analyse

In “Compass and Torch” by Elizabeth Baines we hear about a father and son who are going on a camping expedition. They have not seen each other in four months and therefore this camping trip is supposed to be a father and son trip. The purpose of this trip is to strengthen their relationship. Additionally, the boy´s mother and her boyfriend Jim are not happy about the son going on this trip because they have some issues with his father. The “father role” is taken over by Jim whom is portrayed as the responsible and caring stepfather in comparison to the son´s father. In addition, the main theme is the father and son´s ambivalent feelings towards each other and how they ideally want their relationship to be. Speaking of their relationship they obviously have good intentions towards each other, but they are both trapped between their inability to communicate and how they ideally want their relationship to be.

Furthermore, their relationship leads on to one of the themes of the short story. The father/son relationship arises a lot of different dilemmas and themes in the text. The text mainly focuses on reality/what you wished reality looked like regarding the father/son relationship. This can be seen when “The boy, though, is not looking that way, ahead. He is watching the man.” What this does to the story is that it shows us that the son is trying to see his father as a role model. The effect of this is that there is a huge difference between the boy seeing his father as a role model and him trying to. By using this quote the story emphasizes that the boy wants to see his father as a role model, but he finds it really hard to. Likewise, by showing the son´s reasonable doubts towards his perception of the father it makes the reader doubt what is reality and what is perception.