The significance of effective communication in father-son relationships

下面为大家整理一篇优秀的essay代写范文 -- The significance of effective communication in father-son relationships，文章讲述在大多数情况下，我们认为父母与子女之间的相互感情是理所当然的，认为孩子是被爱的骨头，并且知道他们被爱，而父母以同样的方式注定会充满爱与理解为他们的孩子。但是，并非总是如此。故事“从儿子到父亲的笔记”就是一个很好的例证。

The significance of effective communication in father-son relationships

For most of the time, we take the mutual affection between parents and their children for granted, thinking that kids are bone to be loved as well as knowing they are being loved while parents in the same way are bound to be filled with love and understanding for their kids. However, that is not always the case. The story “Note from a Son to His Father” is a good illustration. Taking into account the life-long harm that indifference and coldness, resulted from the lack of communication, causes to a love-longing son, we shall easily understand the significance of mutual and effective communication between a son and a father. Affection and understanding between families for most of the time do not come naturally, for they depend on certain means to reach each other, and communication, in whatever ways, is a more-than-important way.  

The point above would be much clear when we come to the story itself more closely. In “Notes form a Son to His Father”, Leong, a Chinese-American author, presents before his readers a son’s memory of his father and his confession of sadness and bitterness in the relationship with his father. It is not a wild guess that most readers shall be surprised when the son confesses that “there is nothing good about being a son” with such an absolute tone and indifferent attitude. And this surprise comes from the fact that as sons or daughters, we do in different degrees feel or know the best thing of being the child of somebody. Being a son blessed with a still alive father means you have someone to protect you, guide you to step into the society, and encourage you to protect your dream, just as the father does in the movie The Pursuit of Happiness. So, how come a son gives such a conclusion?

After a close reading, to me, the reason is more than obvious: there is only alienation and silence in that relationship, if there is not silence there is wars, without the mere trace of effective communication. For the son, although he knows a lot of facts about his father and talks about them again and again, he admits himself that he is only trying to “grasp his life through what little information I have of him”. Nothing of value comes out of that repetition. He knows how he beautifully cooks and trival things, for example, the white apron he wears, the “zhap, zhap, zhap” sound of the sharpening of “his cleaver on the back rim of a white Chinese pottery bowl”, etc., that it should surprise us that a boy should have such acute observation. Yet, while he knows so many details about his father, he actually knows not the core of his father, just as he finds out, “[he does] not know the real strength of [his] father’s arm”, which is much the way says he does not know what kind of man his father is really is, including his characteristic, his hobbies, let alone his value and his story that is far gone. Instead, all he could manage to get his father’s “dancing”, is a glittering face in anger and a knife poised at his nose. In his crying, what he feels is not love, but terror and coldness, and totally helpless, he knows not how to defend himself in face of violence and this kind of violence is caused by his own father who shall be the one who protects him from this kind of sufferings. That’s why he says there is nothing good about being a son. Given the condition he is in, such hatred is quite understandable.

 Then the question is why the relationship shall be like this? It is not that difficult for us to locate the very reason since the alienation and disability of communication is immensely obvious in this story. For the son, in the father-and-son relationship, he is only an observer and always the silent, without vent for the communication of his true feelings. Neither does he achieves an access for the responding love from his father, the understanding when he is done wrong, the comforting when it is mostly needed in trouble, and the encouragement and instruction when he is lost confronted by multiple choices for boys. And how about the father’s role in this story? Obviously, he is no better than the son, always shouting with knife in anger. To a degree, it is him who is to take most of the blame in such a father-and-son relationship. The father’s “calmness” and “layered dispassion” is the sign of his incapability of communication in front of his son’s foolishness and youth, while his son’s crying inside and pretending of disinterest his sign of his failure in conveying his true feelings to his father. With no one taking the active role in their relationship, there is no wonder of such a bad father-son relationship.

So we can see that all through the passage, we cannot find direct communication between the son and the father, not even the simple daily dialogue, which is weird and unusual when it comes to the relationship between sons and fathers. All the time if they are not like performer and observer respectively, they are caught in fire of anger and misunderstanding where effective communication is least possible. What’s worse, it seems that they are unable of delivering their felling through civilized methods, with the father resorting to violence and the son to crying silence and useless silence which only worsens his situation. Hence the significance of communication.

And this kind of significance carries a much deeper meaning when we understand the ambiguity and sophistication in the son’s attitude in being a son. We can hardly say that his feeling toward his father is complete hatred even though he thinks his father will just kill him for no good, since he is still so willing to search “with the love to the father and the son”. Even though he will fight back with revenge, it is of great possibility that he fights back with a force, just as he indicates, akin to love. So, we can see that love between family and blood relationship, so naturally decided by destiny, is strong enough not to be eliminated by violence. Actually, it is because of the love that the son feels so much pain from his father’s coldness and alienation, and this kind of pain will just increase until the reconciliation is reach and the desire for mutual love is satisfied. And hence the significance of communication again.

So, adequate methods must be resorted to in the arousing of that natural love and love desired so much for a son. However, for readers who have more closely read this story, they, before racking their brains for resolutions, might probably point out those great difficulties in the achievement of mutual communication: the son-and- father relationship is not the common sort. It is the sort that belongs to that of Chinese immigrants in America, for which, it becomes a more complicated task in achieving the harmony and arousing the nature love between then. Leong, as a fourth-generation Chinese-American, has obviously writes a lot of himself into this story. And when we take the special identities of the son and the father in the story in to consideration, we have a better understanding of the reason of their incapability of communication. It has something to do with personal history that is hardly speakable and better forgotten though it is nightmarish and enduring until the very day of death. That is why the father resorts to silence and even shuts the door before his son and frightens him away. Consequently, his son feels no good being a son and he, in the same way, might say “there is nothing good about being a father” even he ever gets the chance to write a short story named “Notes from a Father to His Son”.

However, there must be a way and there is actually is one. During the reading of “Two Kinds”, I was amazed at the fact that although this is also a story about the relationship between parents and children by Chinese-American writer, there is a great difference in the very ending. Although there are also crying, quarrels, wars of silence, which are far away from being effective communication, there is reconciliation and aroused gratitude from the daughter to her “arrogant” mother and the love of the mother is proved. It is after I conducted some research on Joy Luck Club, from which novel, the story “Two kinds” is taken, that I got some hints of the reason. It is because during the years that the daughter grows up, she manages to know the bitter past of her mother and the influence that the traditional value of China casts on her. The beginning of knowing her is the beginning of her understanding of her mother and her consciousness of the deep love of her mother. So we can see that the communication is not necessary only that between the child and his or her parents, but those between him or her and those who know his or her parents well and those between him or her and the history of his or her parents. However, there is not any trace of this kind of communication in the story written by Leong, “Notes from a Son to His Father”. It is no wonder that there is so much grief about a journey of research in the very ending, just as Fang Chao and Fang Xiaoyi say in their research report that “for adolescents those can get support from their parents in the family communication, they can explode their ego and identity while those who cannot are more likely to suffer psychological problems” (65).

In conclusion, the lack of communication between the son and the father in Leong’s story has caused immense sufferings to the son and even casts a great influence on how he sees the world, and what’s worse, this kind of lacking has prevents him obtaining love which he desires so much from his father. Consequently, difficult though it might be for immigrant family, they should strive to find ways to communicate, to know each other better and thus to arise the love and mutual understanding.

Works Cited

Chao, Fang and Xiaoyi, Fang, “Study on the Communication between Parents and Adolescents”, Advances in Psychological Science, 2003, 11(1): 65-72.

51due留学教育原创版权郑重声明：原创优秀代写范文源自编辑创作，未经官方许可，网站谢绝转载。对于侵权行为，未经同意的情况下，51Due有权追究法律责任。主要业务有essay代写、assignment代写、paper代写、作业代写服务。

51due为留学生提供最好的作业代写服务，亲们可以进入主页了解和获取更多代写范文提供作业代写服务，详情可以咨询我们的客服QQ：800020041。