Sunday in the Park – analysis

”Sunday in the Park” is a short story revolving around an incident in a park, where two men almost get in a fight. One of the men is called Morton, and he is described as being very pale with glasses and a very pinched, lean face. He is the father of a three-year-old boy, so we can assume that he is comparatively young, although his behaviour seems more likely to belong to an older man. He is a professor at a university in the city, and the narrator in the story, who he is married to, seems to see a connection between his paleness and his job (p. 97 l. 11-12). According to her, he is extremely cooped up in the very factory-like, grey university. He seems to like The Times Magazine, which we can quickly associate with him being a professor. If we read a little between the lines, and observe the way he talks, some of his personal characteristics is that he is unobtrusive, reserved and much more verbal than physical. One sentence in the story almost sums up his entire personality; “He put his Times down carefully on his lap and turned his fine, lean face toward the man, smiling the shy, apologetic smile he might have offered a student in pointing out an error in his thinking. When he spoke to the man, it was with his usual reasonableness” (p. 98 l. 13-17).
All of these words describe a person very opposite of the other man in the story, namely “the big man”. He has no name, and we only have the description of him given by the mother, so it can be hard to tell, whether his traits are exaggerated or not. However, if we assume that she is giving us a life-like picture of who he is, we can describe him as a big man with great arms, who is almost taking up an entire bench by himself (p. 97 l. 25-26). In addition, he is reading comics while holding them very close to his face, which gives us the impression that he is rather stupid, because it is not normal grown-up behaviour. Throughout the story, he acts very hostile, and it is clear that he would not mind if the argument ended up with a fistfight.
The mother in the story we do not know much about. She is the narrator, and therefore we observe the events from her point of view. What we do know is that she is married to Morton and is the mother of Larry. In the beginning of the story, everything seems extremely picture perfect. Morton is having one arm flung around her shoulder, and she squeezes his arm in a sense of well-being (p. 97 l. 3-13) – it makes us get the feeling that they have a thriving relationship. However, as the story proceeds we slowly get the feeling that something might not be exactly how it should be. When the argument first starts, she is filled with tenderness and worry towards her husband, and as it goes on it is almost like her brain tells her to stop the fight, but she does not really want to. “She wanted to put her hand on her husband’s sleeve, to pull him down, but for some reason she didn’t.” (p. 98 l. 37-38). What is to be found in between the lines here is that some part of her, that she might not even know exists, really wants Morton to stand up and fight for something that means something to him – to stand up and fight for her. When he doesn’t, a part of her realizes that there are other things in their relationship that does not work. “She sensed that it was more than just an unpleasant incident, more than defeat of reason by force. She felt dimly it had something to do with her and Morton, something acutely personal, familiar and important.” (p. 99 l. 12-15). On page 99 line 34-39 she is having an inner discussion with herself, trying to defend the way Morton tackled the situation, but when he interrupts her inner monolog with a sharp digression on her child rearing and how he could do it better, she loses it. “”Indeed?” she heard herself say. “You and who else?”” (p. 99 l. 45).
One of the most important themes in this story is influence. Primarily because of the huge influence that parents have on their children, but also because of the influence that adults can have on each other in given situations. The father figure is very important for boys, and when the father says; “You go right ahead, Joe… Throw all the sand you want.” it sends a message to the kid that it will not forget. Children will do whatever their parents tell them to, which we can also see when Larry turns to his mother to see whether he should cry or not. Other themes are growing up – both for the kids and for the adults -, social norms, behavior and moral. In addition, I think that the story tells us a lot about relationships and about the term “love is blind”. The story really tells us, just how important it is, to keep things right at the domestic front, chiefly.