Sunday in the Park Bel Kaufman (Английская Литература)

The main characters of the story “Sunday in the park” are the Mortens, namely Morton, his wife and son Larry, also their protagonists a man in the park and his son. The story has it’s setting in the park, where the Mortens went on Sunday. In the park their son begun to play in the sandbox.

But there was another child named Joy who was throwing sand around him. When he threw sand on Larry, Larry’s mother run out of patience. She began to look for child’s parents and haven’t found somebody scolded the boy. At this moment the man sitting on the bench said loudly to the boy, that he was right and had been allowed to do what he wanted, because it’s a public place.

As it turned out the man was Joy’s father. Morton tried to speak to the father but he failed. The man was sure he was right, spoke rude, was aggressive and wanted listen to nobody.

Besides, the man seems to be much stronger than Morton.

Morton didn’t want to fight and wasn’t able to protect his family with verbal means also. Therefore, to avoid the fight, the Mortens had to leave the park, in spite of that Larry wanted to stay there. It characterized him as a man who wasn’t able to protect his family, actually he acted like a coward. Such behavior has Larry also. If he were able to stand up for himself when the offender threw sand on him, parents hadn’t to interfere and the conflict might have been avoided. Instead of that he looked at his mother and waited for her reaction.

The mother could also support his man and protect their right to be in the park as if she does it if she were without her husband or he could to appeal to discuss the problem. She blamed her husband after the conflict although she was also not able to defend his position and act as a parent.

Summing up, the main idea of the story can be formulated in the following way. It’s one of the parent’s responsibilities to stand up for their family and protect their family using verbal means and also force when it’s needed and in such a way to set an example for their children how to solve problem situations and be not defeated.