Fathers in Dubus

In Andre Dubus’ Selected Stories, the father subject comes up often, whether it is an examination of fatherhood and all that composes it, or a particular quirky or otherwise extraordinary father. In fact, the collection is so permeated with fathers that even shorter stories having nothing to do with fathers will still somehow mention it in some capacity. It seems that, as in life, fathers simply exist in Dubus’ world of short fiction. I became aware of this fairly early in my reading, and started thinking about the different fathers I was presented with in each story. The idea to write an essay came naturally after that, because it began to be such a dominating factor in my reading. Although I wish I could go through each story in order and comment on what role, big or small, a father plays in each of them, I had to pick a smaller focus, and decided to look at a story told from a father’s perspective as well as one told from a child’s.
In “The Winter Father,” Dubus uses a close third-person to examine the relationship that begins with his children following the divorce of the man from his wife. I say begins rather than changes because I believe that is the point the author is making in the story. The father isn’t just making a few adjustments in his new life with his children, but is starting a new life with them altogether. I believe he intentionally sets the tone for this in the first paragraph, discussing the actual point where the marriage ends, saying that the couple became a couple again in their last days, where they “wept together, looked into each other’s eyes without guile, distrust, or hatred” and even “without a word, made love” (20). Other than their few conversations throughout, this is the only point in the story where the author discusses the two of them together. From then on, it is all about the father and how he lives both alone and in the time he is able to spend with the children.
The first weekend he spends with his children as a single father, he feels as though “he [is] giving birth, stirruped, on his back” (22). This is further proof that he is embarking on a new life, not a changed one, and must go back to the point where his children were born, seeing them as new creatures in a new world where there is no precedent or experience. Dubus beautifully weaves together scenes where the father and his children are constantly doings things; going to movies, museums, the beach. It’s not merely a list of activities, but a documentation of the man’s creation. He no longer has a partner who participates, but is solely responsible for the world these children are coming into and living in. Dubus consistently reinforces this by playing out discussions he has with the children, characterizing the father entirely by the present and showing nothing of his previous fatherhood. Although there are vague mentions of him being closer to his children than when they lived in the same house, the author shies away from comparisons, evoking both the pain and excitement one feels from creating an entirely new existence.
Dubus also brings another subject to this story, which appears often in his work: what role a sexual relationship occupies. In this story, the sexual relationship that the father begins with Mary Ann has its role questioned and defined by the obvious circumstances surrounding his divorce, particularly how involved she is meant to be with his children. In the first direct conversation between him and his ex-wife, Peter shows his concern about this particular part of their relationship by nervously asking “what the kids would think if Mary-Ann came along” on an afternoon outing (33). Here, Dubus clearly shows that Peter is experiencing a much more unnatural response to the situation than his wife is, as she casually replies “what they’ll think is Mary-Ann is coming along…” (33). Perhaps Dubus is making the point that father’s naturally have a more difficult time to adjusting to being a single parent, or maybe it’s simply the fact that the children live with their mother, and he has a less familiar situation. Either way, this short conversation adds to the internal conflict seen in Peter throughout the story as he literally begins a new life as father to his children.
In the opening story “Miranda Over the Valley,” Dubus presents the narrative from a daughter’s perspective, and shows the role of father as distinctly contrasted with that of a mother. Although most of the action in the story revolves around Miranda going off to college and discovering she is pregnant, the decisive point in the story, where she decides to have an abortion, is directly influenced by her parents. Although Dubus actually resigns the father to a fairly static role, I believe it is an important one. The story shows Miranda in a position that all children find themselves in at one point or another. She believes she knows what she wants, believes she understands the importance of love and marriage, but naturally looks to her parents for guidance on a still unfamiliar territory. Her mother is heavy-handed, never questioning her experience and decisiveness in the advice she gives Miranda on having an abortion. Her father tries to simply be supportive, but in his lack of resolve, helps to alienate Miranda further from himself and his wife.
The father speaks up one time, really, at least in any significant way, by telling Miranda “[he’s] never forced Miranda to do anything, and [he’s] not now, [he] only wants her to look at it from a different side for a while” (10). This admission of his lack of influence is meant to empower his daughter, but that doesn’t seem to be what she is looking for or needs from him. Ultimately, she is left only with her mother’s words telling her to take care of the pregnancy and avoid what is certain to be misery and the ruination of her life. She has the abortion, and rather than teaching her a lesson of responsibility, it seems to change her approach to men entirely. She has a one-night stand with her roommate’s lover, she becomes cold and unaffected towards the man she had until recently considered the love of her life, the man she wanted to marry. And although it remains unstated, or at the least ambiguous, I see her father’s lack of resolve as being the actual catalyst to this, rather than her mother’s calculated, straight-forward advice, which doesn’t even seem like advice, but rather a command.
This is only a brief look at the roles fathers occupy in Dubus’ work. I could write another entire essay on “Killings,” where Dubus presents a seemingly normal man whose son is murdered by the ex-husband of his lover. The father ends up executing an elaborate plan to kill his son’s murderer, and it is not simply the loss of his son that moves him to such extreme measures, but the reminder of it, as he and his wife constantly see the man around town, as he awaits his trial. The story is so haunting and provocative because this is not a man who has done this before, obviously, but his violent love for his son moves him to do something never thought to be within his power. This is perhaps Dubus’ greatest gift as a writer, as his stories constantly place ordinary people in subtly extraordinary situations, and the grace with which he presents them allows the subsequent decisions and actions to always come across as reasonable and believable. Andre Dubus’ Selected Stories is an incredibly vast landscape of American fiction, and it was difficult to focus it down even to the vast subject of fatherhood in his stories. Although his stories cover a wide area of subject matter, I think he presents an impressive embodiment of a very unique America, similar to Ray Carver, and I found his stories especially helpful in thinking about my own subject matter. Hopefully I’ll have the chance again to examine and write about his work, as I feel this limited scope left a lot on the table.