30 pages • 1 hour read
John CheeverReunion
Fiction | Short Story | Middle Grade | Published in 1962A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Charlie
The story is told from the first-person perspective of Charlie, a dynamic protagonist whose perception of his father shifts considerably throughout the narrative. Because the story is in the past tense and begins with “the last time I saw my father” (518), the narrator is an older Charlie reflecting on a past event that led to a personal realization and transformation.
At the beginning of the story, Charlie idolizes his father. Upon the man’s arrival at the train station, Charlie views his dad in glowing terms and even describes his father’s smell as “a rich compound of whiskey, after-shave lotion, shoe polish, woolens, and the rankness of a mature male” (518). The boy’s association of these smells with maturity underscores his longing to be just like his dad. However, this does not mean that Charlie is a young child. Although the boy’s age is never explicitly stated, he is old enough to be traveling alone and to set up a meeting with his father. Additionally, he is served an alcoholic beverage and his age is questioned by a waiter. Therefore, it can be assumed that Charlie is a teenager.
As time progresses, Charlie’s presence is minimal in the action of the story, which suggests that he is watching his father through adoring eyes while also absorbing his father’s condescending behavior. After their initial meeting, Charlie is involved in the action only when he follows his father out of a restaurant or when he narrates that they discuss baseball. Charlie does not actually speak until the end of the story. These details—or lack of them—suggest Charlie feels removed or detached from his father’s behavior.
The first time Charlie speaks, after exiting the fourth restaurant, is when a transformation begins to take place highlighting the theme of Expectation Versus Reality. While indicating that he must leave, Charlie calls his father, “Daddy” suggesting that even though he witnesses the horrid behavior of his father, he still struggles to hold onto his ideal perception of the man. However, when his father insists on stopping at a newsstand despite Charlie telling him a second time that he needs to go, Charlie merely says, “Goodbye, Daddy” (520) and heads into the train station. His terse farewell marks not just the end of the visit, but the end of their relationship, and the termination of Charlie’s naïve adoration of his father.
Charlie’s Father
Charlie’s father is a static character who remains unchanged throughout the duration of the narrative: a selfish man who will do anything to get what he wants and to get a rise out of people. Without provocation in the first restaurant, he shouts at the waiter and claps his hands for service, signs of disrespect and condescension. As he drinks more at each restaurant, the insults and demands become increasingly aggressive in his speech and tone; he even snaps at a server in the third restaurant: “You know damned well what I want” (519). He continues with this behavior at a newsstand where, yet again, he is unprovoked by the clerk. The father even asks Charlie to wait before leaving because he wants “to get a rise out of this chap” (520). Whether disgruntled or not, the man approaches the world with a gruff and disrespectful air, just because he can.
In many ways, Charlie’s father is also the driving force behind the theme of The Inability to Communicate. First, he does not make plans with Charlie, but instead leaves that task to his secretary. Despite not seeing his son in three years, he fails to connect with him even before the narrative has begun. Additionally, at each restaurant, he demonstrates an inability to be polite and respectful with shouting, name-calling, and inappropriate actions such as striking “the edge of his empty glass with his knife” (519). John Cheever juxtaposes these actions with the waiters referring to him as “sir” or quietly ignoring his antics, drawing a clear distinction between appropriate and inappropriate means of communication.
Although the narration through Charlie’s eyes simply recounts what happens, and there is no direct struggle between the two, his father serves as the antagonist for he is the source of all conflict within the story. Furthermore, the older man’s selfish and rude behavior combined with his alcohol consumption lead to Charlie’s decision to leave his father, reinforcing the theme of Taking the High Ground. When ordering drinks in the third restaurant, the man requests “Two Bibson Geefeaters” (519), which are Beefeater Gibsons. This mistake, along with the waiter’s smile in response, suggests that Charlie’s father is already intoxicated. Not long after, Charlie speaks for the first time, noting that he must leave. The moralist perspective is reinforced in this story when the waiters and clerk serve as foils to the father’s rude and immoral behavior, highlighting to Charlie just how despicable his father is. In the end, the boy does not just say farewell to his father but ends their entire relationship in an abrupt manner.
The Waiters and Clerk
Although none of these characters are named and there is variation among them, they collectively serve as a foil to Charlie’s father. In the first restaurant, the father “clapped his hands” and “hailed the waiter in a loud voice” (518), while the waiter responds “quietly” (519). This contrast increases in intensity at the second restaurant when Charlie’s father swears at the waiter for asking the boy’s age, while the waiter reacts with a firm, “I’m sorry, sir” (519). The juxtaposition between the ill-mannered man and the polite and patient employees heightens at each successive restaurant, culminating in the ultimate contrast at the newsstand: Charlie’s father asks for “disgusting specimens of yellow journalism” as “the clerk turn[s] away from him” (520). The clerk refuses to engage with the father, emphasizing the difference between them even more. The same scene unfolding repeatedly not only reveals the father’s inability to communicate appropriately and effectively, but it also illuminates a true picture of Charlie’s dad that does not match the boy’s ideal expectations. In fact, this final disparity serves as the impetus for Charlie himself turning away from his father.
In addition to fueling Charlie’s realization, the waiters and clerk demonstrate the theme of Taking the High Ground. Their calm demeanor in response to the father’s aggression literally demonstrates how to act in the face of disrespect. Their words and actions present Charlie with a model of how to politely turn away from something undesirable, which is exactly what he does in the end.
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