Four Summers Essay, Research Paper

I found the story Four Summers to be a very odd and different piece. I thought

it was a very true and realistic story, but the way it was told threw me off a

little. The believable part of the story is how it relates to family life. Many

children grow up thinking about how different their lives will be when they are

adults, but it just doesn?t work that way. No matter how hard you may try, you

will end up similar to your parents, be it language, activities, or the

lifestyle in general. Throughout her childhood, Sissie seemed to despise the bar

and did not want anything to do with it. She also had a tough time deciding

whether or not she liked her father. When she grew up, she married a man that

was quite similar to her own father. Jesse was a big guy, he enjoyed the bar

scene, and he drank beer. Those are characteristics of Sissie?s father. The

family cycle lives on yet another generation and will probably keep going until

someone makes an active effort to cease that type of behavior. The stranger

Sissie met as a fourteen year-old is the only thing I didn?t understand. Why

was that such a significant thing for her when she came back to the bar with

Jesse? The only conclusion I can make is that the stranger would have been the

one to break the cycle with Sissie. That doesn?t seem likely though, as he was

in the bar in the first place, and he was in it when she returned several years

later. I didn?t really like reading this story because of the manner in which

it was written. It was different, but not easy to decipher at draw conclusions

from.