(urth) Short Story 14: Paul's Treehouse

[Darth Ed]

On Apr 7, 2012, at 3:33 PM, Marc Aramini wrote:
>  On Sat, 4/7/12, Darth Ed <darthed77 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I think Wolfe identifies with the adults more than Paul here.
> 
> He is just showing how ridiculous and separated from their son they are - there is nothing positive about Morris that he does not squish - wanting to reassure his son that he isn't really going to cut down the tree, then stopping himself from saying that.  He's an ass, and we are supposed to see that.

Sure, I agree with that. I'm not saying Morris is a stand-in for Wolfe himself. Simply put, I feel that the theme and execution of the story indicates to me that Wolfe felt out of touch with the youth of the 1960s. Let's not forget that Wolfe was 38 years old in 1969.