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The Mother
The child’s father is mentioned at the beginning of the story, when the child is first wandering into the forest to play at war with his toy sword. The child’s father is now a slaveholding planter, but he used to be a soldier. The story makes clear that the child has learned his cavalier, playful attitude about war from his father, who holds similar ideas himself and loves to look at old books with pictures of battles and soldiers. That the child’s disastrously romantic ideas about war come from his father broadens the story’s critique of such fantasies of those who hold them—through the character of the father it’s clear that, while the deaf-mute child is uniquely unable to grasp the reality of war, such views are widespread and destructive. The father’s casual participation in the domination of others is further made clear by the fact that he owns slaves. It is not revealed whether the child’s father survives at the end of the story. The narrator describes the child finding a dead woman’s body, but not a dead man’s. However, since the child’s entire home has burned, it is reasonable to assume that his father may have also died, along with everyone else who lived at the plantation.
The Father Quotes in Chickamauga
The Chickamauga quotes below are all either spoken by The Father or refer to The Father. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chickamauga
Quotes
In his younger manhood the father had been a soldier, had fought against naked savages and followed the flag of his country into the capital of a civilized race to the far South. In the peaceful life a planter the warrior-fire survived; once kindled, it is never extinguished. The man loved military books and pictures and the boy had understood enough to make himself a wooden sword, though even the eye of his father would hardly have known it for what it was. This weapon he now bore bravely, as became the son of an heroic race.
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Somewhere far off was a strange, muffled thunder, as if the partridges were drumming in celebration of nature’s victory over the son of her immemorial enslavers. And back at the little plantation, where white men and black were hastily searching the fields and hedges in alarm, a mother’s heart was breaking for her missing child.
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The Father Quotes in Chickamauga
The Chickamauga quotes below are all either spoken by The Father or refer to The Father. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chickamauga
Quotes
In his younger manhood the father had been a soldier, had fought against naked savages and followed the flag of his country into the capital of a civilized race to the far South. In the peaceful life a planter the warrior-fire survived; once kindled, it is never extinguished. The man loved military books and pictures and the boy had understood enough to make himself a wooden sword, though even the eye of his father would hardly have known it for what it was. This weapon he now bore bravely, as became the son of an heroic race.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Somewhere far off was a strange, muffled thunder, as if the partridges were drumming in celebration of nature’s victory over the son of her immemorial enslavers. And back at the little plantation, where white men and black were hastily searching the fields and hedges in alarm, a mother’s heart was breaking for her missing child.
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