"The Drunkard"

Paper Summary:

This paper introduces, discusses, and analyzes Frank O'Connor's story, "The Drunkard". More specifically, the paper relates the plot of the story, the author's use of narrative voice, the crucial phase of the story, and how, rather than a sad tale of a father's alcoholism, the story becomes a funny and ultimately uplifting tale of how the young boy in the story fulfilled his mother's implied plea to guard his father and to act as a brake upon the man's weakness. The paper concludes that the what seems to be a story of tragedy early on becomes a comic and hopeful tale about a young son making good on a promise to his mother.

From the Paper:

"Here is the crucial phrase of the story: "To this day I don't know whether he was forswearing me or the drink." This is the punch line that makes the tale into a positive tale, about the father foreswearing drink, rather than a story about either the father's or his son's eventual descent into alcoholism. "My brave little man!" she said with her eyes shining. "It was God did it you were there. You were his guardian angel." The fact that his father eventually foreswore drink indicates the extent to which the incident impacted his father in ways that the boy could not know at the time. However, the mother's joy and the fact that the boy was the father's guardian angel seem to indicate that this incident, for all of its negative implications, was a harbinger of good things to come. The fact that the boy became the drunkard of the title for one night rather than his father is the child's lasting legacy to his family's security, and eventually resulted in his father foreswearing drink for the rest of his life. What seems to be a story of tragedy early on becomes a comic and hopeful tale about a young son making good on a promise to his mother."

Sample of Sources Used:

• O'Connor, Frank. "The Drunkard." 14 May 2007. Short Story Classics. Last updated 11 Feb 2000. E-Text available at http://ee.1asphost.com/shortstoryclassics/foconnordrunkard.html

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