What Impression Does Mortimer Give of his Relationship With his Father?

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What Impression Does Mortimer Give of his Relationship With his Father?

In this passage Mortimer describes his relationship with his father and how his opinion of his father changed as his life progressed. Mortimer goes through his feelings towards his father in three main stages in this passage: great respect before his father’s blindness, embarrassment and anger after his father’s blindness, and guilt after his father’s death.

At first it is obvious that Mortimer has a deep reverence for his father and begins this passage by stating that his father, ‘was a very clean man,’ this suggests that he is proud of his father’s appearance. But this all changes after he realises that his father has gone blind. The god-like respect that he once had for him has faded and he can no longer see him as a protector or provider, but as an invalid, someone who he has to look after. It is also apparent that the respect that he had for his father’s image has also gone as he describes him as having a hand that felt,’ small, long-fingered and already ill-fitting, like a loose glove,’ Mortimer is actually, ‘Embarrassed by the blind man publicly attached to my (his) arm,’ and wanted to, ‘ shake him off,’ ‘to allow him to wander off, hopelessly among the trams.’

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The previous quote also shows Mortimer feeling a great deal of anger at his father, the fact that he was even thinking about allowing his father to get run over by the trams shows this. Mortimer is angry at the fact that his father is always going to see him, ‘ in his mind’s eye, like a scrawny and awkward schoolboy of thirteen.’ This builds a fear in him that his father, in his mind, will never let Mortimer grow up and he therefore feels that he will never be able to earn the respect of being on equal ...

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