"...but I was being attached to the party to act as a brake on Father. As a brake I had never achieved anything, but Mother still had great faith in me." (p. 344)
Throughout "The Drunkard," the author uses an image of brakes. For example, in the excerpt above, Larry describes his presence at the funeral as "brakes" on his Father. Larry states that he had never actually stopped his father from drinking before, but his mother still believed he would. It was almost as if she knew what was going to happen. This metaphor is ironically played out. To prevent his father from drinking, Larry (as a young child) finds himself drunk, distracting his father from his alcohol addiction. Larry has no intention of becoming drunk or stopping his father from drinking. This irony adds an element of humor to the story even though alcoholism is a completely serious issue. At the end of the story, Larry's mother credits her young child for saving her husband by protecting him from alcohol. I thought it was humorous that she did not even care about her son getting drunk; she was only worried about his father.
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