My father’s hands

Author – Calvin R Worthington

text type – short story

date read – April

My father’s hand is a story told by the father son. The son describes his hands as, ” rough and exceedingly strong”. The father was illiterate, this challenge formed a barrier with his life as he struggled with his literacy. This became life threatening for him as he couldn’t read

The character I found most interesting was the father. Because even though he was unable to read and write, he still could do day day tasks, that didn’t involve reading or writing. Which some people still struggle with. I can personally relate to this because I to struggle with reading and writing too. Both me and the father struggle with dyslexia, dyslexia can affect your literacy skills, so most literacy involved things are hard for me. but people that don’t have dyslexia don’t have any problems with their literacy. This makes the father and i very similar, because of this disorder. My father struggles with his literacy too. If he read this story he could also relate to this as literacy is his weak point, this is because he dropped out of school when he was fifteen, And went into the workforce. The father was tellentened with non literacy things, ” He could gently prune fruit trees or firmly wrestle an ornery mule into harness”. This tells the reader that he could complete things without struggling.

Messages that I took away from this story is that. You don’t have to be academically smart to get through life. The father was smart, in his own little way, like most people are. In society people have different strengths, as they have a weak and strong point in their lives. In society this is shown as what your best at, and what you need to work on. For the father being creative was his strong point .”He could draw and saw a square with quick accuracy” and literacy being his weak point. This is because he struggled at school with his literacy, and decided to give up on school. But in society nowadays you can’t drop out when you want to. Because you need some form of literacy knowledge when you leave school.

Challenges that the father had to face was being illiterate. This formed a barrier with his life, and what he could and couldn’t do. The father’s mild heart attacks ended up with him having to take medication. His literacy became a life threatening problem for him, as he couldn’t read the medication bottle, it had a kiddy lock on it. ” Child proof cap – push down and twist to unlock”. This tells the reader that the father didn’t realise that the cap was kiddy proof. “The druggist later confirmed that he had just started to use the new safety cap.

My father’s hand is an appropriate title for the story because. The title tells you what the story is about. ” The father’s capabilities” , and what his hands were capable of doing. The author has used this title because the story is based on the father, and his hands.

I would recommend this story to people who struggle with reading and writing, and can relate to the father. and for people to know they are still capable of doing things, that doesn’t require reading or writing. This could make the reader feel less different from everyone else, so they feel accepted into the world. In society some people don’t feel “accepted into the world”, and feel like the “odd one out”, because they can’t do something. people are bullied for there weaknesses. its put against them,