Quiet strength

A M Gautam celebrates the rare and powerful presence of good fathers in fiction who, through kindness, emotional depth, and steady presence, offer a counterpoint to the typical portrayals of masculinity today

“Me? I’m the original sad man. I read a book, and it makes me sad. I see a film: sad. Plays? They really get to me,” Charles Halloway tells his son Will, the protagonist of Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes.
Having lost my own father just shy of 10 years old, I’ve always had a soft spot for good fathers in fiction. They’re hard to come by: dysfunctional parents make for better plots.

Also, by the time most writers begin writing seriously, childhood feels like a distant land they’ve long since left behind. Fathers, by then, are unimpressive middle-aged men whose identities are defined more by politics, ideologies, or religions than by the act of fatherhood. As Michael Chabon writes in The Recipe for Life, a personal essay about his father and their relationship: “At this point, to be honest, being my father’s son is less than a sideline; it’s more like a hobby, one of a number of pastimes acquired early, pursued with intensity, laid aside, and then only intermittently, over the years, resumed: origami, cartooning, model-building, being a baseball fan, being a son.”

Yet, in a literary world full of terrible or absentee fathers, like Abraham (from the Bible), Fyodor Karamazov (The Brothers Karamazov), and Pap Finn (Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), sometimes you come across a Charles Halloway or an Atticus Finch.

In Bradbury’s dark meditation on childhood, nostalgia, and temptation, Charles is not a “Good Dad” in a syrupy, sitcom way. He doesn’t always say the right things, doesn’t always think the right things, and gets scared by scary things. He’s 54, his son is 14, and his wife is 10 years younger than he is. As the weight of his years quietly accumulates, the adolescent antics of his son make his own yearning for youth all the more intense. Yet, throughout the book, he tries, really tries, to be a good person and a good father. Over the years, I’ve come to value this effort more than many other traits, and that’s part of why I like Charles so much.

Charles also has the rare quality of seeing Will as a separate person, not just an extension of himself. He trusts his son and believes him, even when he makes the most fantastic claims. When Charles has to defend Will and Jim (Will’s best friend) against unnatural forces much stronger than him, he doesn’t do it through physical force or melodramatic sacrifices. Instead, he defends them in the most father-like ways possible: by laughing at all that is absurdly, fantastically horrific, by letting joy dismiss the darkly absurd, and happiness sweep away all the Faustian bargains on offer. Charles Halloway,” citizen, father, introspective husband, night-wanderer, and janitor of the town library”, saves his son, but he also lets his son save him, in turn. The book’s final paragraph tells us all we need to know about Charles as a father:
“Perhaps the boys slowed. They never knew.
Perhaps Charles Halloway quickened his pace. He could not say. But, running even with the boys, the middle-aged man reached out.
Will slapped, Jim slapped, Dad slapped the semaphore signal base at the same instant.
Exultant, they banged a trio of shouts down the wind.
Then, as the moon watched, the three of them together left the wilderness behind and walked into the town.”

Another fictional father, perhaps the most beloved in English literature, is Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird. We know less about Atticus’s worries and fears compared to Charles Halloway, but the two share plenty in common when it comes to taking children seriously, answering them truthfully, and choosing reason over rage.

“It’s not time to worry yet,” Atticus repeatedly tells Jem and Scout, even in the most turbulent situations, when danger lurks right around the corner. When Scout, his six-year-old daughter, asks him what rape is, he gives her an accurate, though somewhat technical, definition, instead of sidestepping the question or getting annoyed by it. He doesn’t impose his views on his children, taking the time to explain his actions and decisions to them. When Bob Ewell threatens him, Atticus tells an outraged Jem that the threat is merely the last resort of a man stripped of all credibility. Even later, when Bob spits in his face, Atticus responds with dry humour: “I wish Bob Ewell wouldn’t chew tobacco.” It is this self-restraint that causes Atticus’s children to remark that their father, “who hated guns and had never been to any wars,” was the bravest man who ever lived. Atticus doesn’t limit his kindness by the identity of its recipient either. He treats even Old Mrs Dubose, a morphine addict who is not above tormenting children, with smiles and politeness. In a culture that increasingly admires the spectacle of the aggressive, unscrupulous “alpha male”, loud, certain, unyielding, there’s something quietly radical about figures like Charles Halloway and Atticus Finch. They don’t command respect through fear or posturing. Their strength lies in decency, not dominance. They are introspective, emotionally intelligent men who feel deeply, think carefully, and parent gently.

Their way of being in the world, and with their children, offers a counterpoint to the brittle bravado of today’s “manfluencers.” What makes these fathers powerful is not that they are perfect, but that they are present. They listen. They explain. They trust. In doing so, they model a form of masculinity that is honest, self-aware, and generous. That such men are rare in fiction mirrors their scarcity in real life, but that only makes their presence more vital. In these quiet, good fathers, there is an invitation: to young men, especially, to choose thoughtfulness over certainty, kindness over swagger, and to understand that trying, really trying, might just be the most courageous thing one can do.

(Note: Of course, there are other fictional fathers worthy of appreciation. Sam Vimes from Sir Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series deserves a special mention, as does Bob Cratchit from A Christmas Carol. If you have any favourites in literature, cinema, or other art forms, feel encouraged to share them with us at [e-mail].)