The Drunkard- Frank O'Connor

   The questions at the end of each story actually have meaning! While most of the time, there are about typical parts of a novel like characters, setting, symbols, and irony, now we have a question about pathos! While reading this short story, I realized just how much emotion the author evokes. This is a fictional story, but the concepts that it uses give readers a lot of emotions to sort through. First, I would say that we experience sympathy for the mother because this is one of those family's where the father is absent, and the wife works incredibly hard to make up for it. O'Connor actually mentions clearly early on by writing, "Drink, you see, was Father's great weakness,"(O' Connor). Knowing this, we automatically know and recognize that the mother is going through a lot, and we feel sympathy for that reason. The other emotion evoked is frustration. The irony of the story, to me at least, evoked frustration because the concept of a child drinking is ridiculous. And who is to blame for this? The father who goes to the bar is responsible. He brought his child to a bar and was planning on drinking in front of his son. Then his son, who must learn from his father, drinks the entire thing. With the outrageous event, O' Connor definitely succeeds in using pathos to create a mindset of sympathy for the mother, and frustration with the father.