Spoil the child is a short story written by Howard Fast in 1991 and is taking place on the American prairie. In our story we follow a family of four, father, mother, daughter and a younger son. The father went hunting in the morning, and when he does not come back in time, and they realise they are about to run out of water, they become restless and Dave goes off searching for his father. Dave finds his father killed and returns to the wagon where his mom and sister are awaiting. When they ask him where father is he is pretending as nothing has happened.
He orders his sister to go into the wagon with his mother. At night he is laying under the wagon guarding the family. Out of the night two Indians suddenly approach, they unharness the mules and the one of them is getting closer. Dave shoots one of them and the other one runs of. Dave harnesses the mules and gets them to safety. In the morning they have arrived by a river and the mother has given birth to a boy during the night. Our main character starts out as a boy. A quite fine example is the first thing he does in the morning, which is riding a mule.
Maude tells on him and he gets the licking from Ma. The dad leaves in the morning and everything is just the way it uses to be. The development of Dave starts when they are getting worried for Pa. They all think it is strange that Pa has not come back yet and they fear the worst, without saying so. Dave has now taken the charge and is going to search for dad. He finds his Pa killed, looks at him straightens his clothes and pulls of his shoes, despite “Men in the west were talking about dying with their boots on” – He is not quite grown up yet, else he would had let his father keep the shoes on.
When he comes back to the wagon his thoughts are suddenly so serious and mature and he takes responsibility on his shoulders, it is like he aged during the trip but still he gets the licking from Ma. If we take a look at the sentences from 70 to 80 page 14, we have a quick dialog between the two children. Dave is the most mature of the children despite his elder sister. From now on he is in charge and he acts like the head of the family. He guards at night, shoots the Indian, harnesses and whips the mules and at last he takes his family to safety.
This is not an ordinary twelve-year old boys work, he has become a man during the night! At morning Ma does not lick Dave though he deserved it, and she even asks Dave for advice “What are we going to do? ” in which Dave responds, they will go west just like Pa said. The short story ends with the phrase “A man feels funny – with a kid. ” The phrase supports our development, of our main character. He is now complete. He has now become the new father for the child and the new head of the family but the apple does not fall far from the tree. He is a settler with itchy feet just like his father; they have to keep going west, therefor not the new superior mankind, which is the American.
In the future this might indicate that Dave can not deal with the new land just like his father, and that u have to be born in the USA to survive the prairies and use the lands but it’s a sacrifice for the new generation. For a new generation to come it takes the old to fade out, so the new born son is the upcoming superior mankind the American man. The title “Spoil the child” describes the relationship between mom and son. Ma wants the best for her son, which in this case basically is not to be like his father because he was just a lot of trouble with his itchy feet.
Spoil the child is the rest of the phrase spare the rod, so spare the rod and spoil the child. This is why she is always so harsh on Dave. It means if you do not raise your children with hard discipline you will make your children a failure. As we see through the text, she always use the rod until he becomes a man, and you must say Dave becomes quite a good man with all those amazing things he does. Opposite of his sister, which Ma always takes in defence when Dave teases her. Maude did not do anything good at all, she was to put it bluntly, bloody useless.
So we have the two children and the one, which the rod was spared, she got spoiled and the one who got the rod became their survival. Dave is now a man, and he has done stunning things, though he might be a little more than a boy becoming a man. He is also representing the development of the USA. Just as the USA, Dave starts out as a little honest child while growing meets challenges and bad luck. Same for the USA and Dave they both conquer the Indians, and then they both of course have had other challenges in their transformation. The independency they both achieve by time is also an important thing to point out.
