Father Character Analysis

Joe’s father dies before Joe goes to war. Nevertheless, he remains perhaps the most important figure in Joe’s memories and hallucinations as Joe remembers his past while lying in the hospital. The book begins with Joe reliving the day he got the phone call that his father had died; phones remain a common thread throughout the novel, often signifying death. Joe’s father wasn’t an artist, but he took so much pride in small tasks like tending his garden that it was almost like an art. One of Joe’s key formative moments (which he relives while recovering at the hospital) is when he loses his father’s treasured fishing rod while on a trip with Bill Harper. Although Joe’s father is understanding, the loss of the rod coincides with Joe reaching the age when he stops going on camping trips with his father and starts going with his friends, representing Joe’s transition out of childhood.