Author Question: While waiting for the artist to finish the God tattoo, Parker feels thathis sensations of the day ... (Read 82 times)

theo · **on:** Jul 20, 2018

While waiting for the artist to finish the God tattoo, Parker feels thathis sensations of the day and night before were those of a crazy man and that he would return to doing things according to his own sound judgment (paragraph 117). How much self-awareness does this observation demonstrate?

What will be an ideal response?

Question 2

Long views depressed Parker. You look out into space like that and youbegin to feel as if someone were after you, the navy or the government or religion (paragraph 36). What insights does this statement give us into Parkers characterand, consequently, into his behavior?

What will be an ideal response?

nicoleclaire22 · **Reply #1 on:** Jul 20, 2018

Answer to Question 1

This insight from the storys narrator demonstrates that Parker is still running from Godmuch like the Old Testaments Moses and Jonah. He wants to sleep as he has done when he acquired all his other tattoos, but he cannot. His body is tense, his mind is racing. Even after the burning bush-like epiphany of the tractor collision, Parker is still trying to deny that his life has changed. His near-death experience and the burning shoes (where his feet are not but should have been) jolt him into a reality that he never wanted to accept. Even as he continually thinks that he will not return to Sarah Ruths bed, Parker thinks that he wants nothing to do with Godyet his souls dissatisfaction will not allow him to ignore either.

Answer to Question 2

This quote provides an essential insight into O. E. Parker: he is very much a creature of the moment and does not want to think about the future. His existence has been a series of impulsive actionshe fled from a church revival to the navy, then fled from the navy, and so onand he has thrashed his way blindly through his life. He is out of touch with his own inner needs and discontents, and nothing has ever touched that part of himself except the tattooed man at the fair and his own subsequent pursuit of tattoos: Parker had never before felt the least motion of wonder in himself. Until he saw the man at the fair, it did not enter his head that there was anything out of the ordinary about the fact that he existed. Even then it did not enter his head, but a peculiar unease settled in him.

It was as if a blind boy had been turned so gently in a different direction that he did not know his destination had been changed (par. 19). Parkers indifference to the finer points of religious belief is part of a much larger indifference to just about everything beyond himself and his immediate needs and gratifications.