Shaun’s Dad’s death
The novel mainly focuses on the struggle of young boy being a gay, and how he feels the lack of acceptance by the society. It gives an insight to what this generation might face as troubles growing up in a world dominated by straight culture. Meanwhile, the lack of emotions by Shaun after the death of his father is another connection on how he was brought up as a kid and told to be strong no matter what happens. The writer showed that to please the expectations of the society Shaun had to suppress his feelings even if it is the tragic incident of his own father.
Shaun, a boy, is the epitome of the typical young kid; he continually shows little emotion and, in the end, bottles everything up and handles it himself. Shaun acted excellently according to society's standards when his father died at the end of this story; he did not cry or exhibit any emotion. "I never saw Shaun cry, or buckle at the knees, or do any of the things I would have done," the narrator says, illustrating how devastated, or rather cool, Shaun is following his father's death. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity in terms of drama, but he wasn't having it. Instead of talking about and dealing with his grief over his father's death, Shaun shut down and pretended he was unaffected by these feelings or the events that occurred. The connection is shown in the way men would appear cowardly when they show too much emotions and showing anguish or internal struggles would ultimately make an individual less of a man.
Attending the football game
Sedaris’s essay tells the tale of a young man who goes through a usual childhood, catching sea turtles and going to ball games, until he is exposed to a life altering experience. Sedaris’s essay exposes what the mind of a young gay boy is like growing up and the struggles of not fitting in and being alienated. Sedaris’s metaphoric use of animals also offers the idea of Sedaris’s inner conflicts being exposed to the readers.
Similar type of experience is tried to explain in the football game narrative that how someone is more comfortable in some particular environment and they don’t like it to be pushed into something which they don’t like. The football game connects the whole idea of the loggerheads with the narrative of being judged by others, or forced to be like everybody else.
The narrative of the football game also shows a mentality of our society that wants us to be like our parents or at least become what they want us to become. Just like the narrator’s Dad who likes the football game a lot and we also saw it in the story that he turns on the TV for a football game on a weekend night, “my father hogged the TV for one of his football games”. Moreover, with the narration of a football game and how his father only wants his son to watch the game but not his daughter because she is a girl, explains pretty much stereotyping and struggle in the boyhood of the child.
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