Comparative Essay

            After reading "The Last Game" by Jan Wiener and "The Reunion" by John Cheever, there are many similarities as well as many differences in both stories. The obvious similarities are both stories are written by two men who are recalling the last time they seen their father. The difference is the contrast in how both fathers act. However, both stories also take place after a life changing occurrence in both father's lives. .
             In "The Reunion", the son sees his father for the first time in three years after Charlie's father and mother divorced. When Charlie sees his father, he says, " I hoped someone would see us together. I wished that we could be photographed. I wanted some record of our having been together. He is filled with joy and admiration towards his father and wants to be like him, but soon he realizes that his father is an arrogant, rude, pigheaded person. Nobody wants to be a person like that, and Charlie showed his disappointment, or embarrassment, by the way he walked away from his father. He did not expect his father to act like that, which led me to believe that his father probably did not act this way before the divorce from his mother. .
             "The Last Game" takes place during World War II. The Nazis were hunting the father and son and the mother was already caught. The father and son were running for seven years, and the father was tired of running. He felt the Nazis were going to catch up to them eventually and that they were going to kill them, so he decided to kill himself to die his way. Jan Wiener's father was obviously a strong, proud man who was broken down by the Nazis.
             The difference in the stories is how the father's act in the stories. The father in "The Reunion" is not really paying attention to his son, his is more worried about his Beefeater Gibson. The mood was funny (to us) and light because neither of them knew this will be the last time they will see each other.