Comparing Brad Manning’s Arm Wrestling With My Father and Itabari Njeri

Comparing Brad Mannings short story Arm Wrestling With My Father, and Itabari Njeris When Morpheus Held Him The relationship between a father and son stems from an unspoken competition in many countries. Whether it is a physical or mental rivalry the superior role slowly transcends on to the son as he grows into a man. In Brad Mannings short story Arm Wrestling With My Father, and Itabari Njeris When Morpheus Held Him, both contain admiring sons and unemotional fathers. Despite both stories similarities in unspoken emotions they differ in the aspect of their physical relationships. This unrequited bond between a father and son in these stories portray various types of love. Throughout Brad Mannings anecdote about gird wrestling he refers to his father as the arm or the whelm with clenched fists. The embodiment of his father in these empowered limbs shows the dominating figure once held over him. Daddy, was the only personal name Itabari Njeris father allowed him to say. If Njeri d id not settle for Daddy, Dr. Moreland would have to due. There is a sterile and clinical connotation in referring ones father as Doctor. Mannings states, the man would win, too giving an impersonal and cold feeling to his strong father. But this impersonal name was not forced upon Manning as Njeris father had done. Mannings father-son matches battling arm against arm was their only means of communication. Manning decodes his fathers crude ritual,...