In the essay the “The Rake” the author is illustrated how family lifestyle are different. David Mamet shows how conflicts affect every member of a family. Reading this essay makes me feels emotionally struck. From my observation I can tell this family is a low-income middle class family. The family is most likely doesn’t have any set morals or values. The only rule I can se was that thy all sat and ate dinner together at the round table n the nook. I guess they were more family-oriented far as dinner go than beliefs and religions. I can tell from just reading that the children had no say so in most situations.
The author attacks the point that the children are dealing with their family abusive ways. While Mamet was telling of the abusive ways he never mentioned that they had other family members beside the mother, stepfather, sister, and grandfather; so that tells me that they were t themselves. And they had a small family. This essay affects me in many ways. Reason for saying this is because I am highly affectionate to my family. I love being around family all the time, but if I had to deal with problem that Mamet and his sister witness I wouldn’t be able to get use too that.
The outcome to the behavior of the family was inappropriate. Fairly because Mamet and his sister didn’t get much attention, and the way the sister was treated could have been escalated to way worst problem; like death. There were many scenes from the essay which had a significant call for attention. Like the scene of which Mamet sister play was premiering that night at school and she could not attend because she didn’t finish her dinner. As I mentioned earlier in my essay the only set rules that this family had was sitting together to have dinner and she for once was to excited to eat because her leading role. This situation support the reason for me saying that the children had no say-so for anything. Another scene that affected me was when the stepfather hits the sister in the face for no apparent reason and from then on he continues to beat on her. This makes me feel like there is no self control and that the violent ways trigger a emotion of mine that would only makes situations like those more violent.
The imagery that the author conveys in the essay show low authority figures in the family. To support this fact the mother in the essays goes to say, “that until one or the other answered, we could not go to the hospital,” (Memoir 72) this is when Mamet hits his sister in the face with the rake. The mother shows no remorse to her daughter and knowing that the rest of the family was sitting at the table made it seen that the family had no authority in the family to speak up and haste fully take care of the incident by cleaning up the blood and making sure she was okay, but I see their was none of that sort.
Another reason for me finding myself to say the family didn’t care for one another emotionally is when Mamet went away his sister told him that, “on the weekends when I was gone my stepfather ended every Sunday evening by hitting or beating her for some reason or other” (Memoir 71). Which I think was unnecessary because anger shouldn’t push a person to that limit.
As a whole “The Rake” plays an shattering violent past that no one had control over. The author symbolizes the title ‘the rake’ revolves around claws of the rake that damages and shows violents. And at the same time ‘the rake’ can be used as a clean up tool which the family still play the role as a whole not separating, letting nothing come between them form beginning to end which explains the subtitle ‘A few scenes from my childhood’.
