Tony Earley’s novel Jim the Boy, the short story "My Father’s Heart," and the essay "Deer Season" reveal the weight of the past that affects the protagonist’s or the narrator’s family. In other words, the mood is made by the death of the character Jim’s father or by the tension between Earley and his father.

Through the novel, the mother of Jim Glass, Cissy Glass demonstrates her grief impact by the death of her husband. Even her beloved family and time cannot cure her injured heart from the past. In the sentence "The uncles, the women of the church, the people of the town, had long since given up on trying to talk her into leaving the plow where it lay . . . Jim knew only that his mother was sad, and that he figured somehow in her sadness."(8) Which describes how much Cissy is having a hard time that led her to close her mind and clings to her dead husband. Jim notices the sorrow of his mother and feels the wall between them. Moreover, Cissy restricts Jim by overprotection. In the morning before Jim went up to the mountain to meet his grandfather, Cissy requests to Jim "‘You just have to promise me you’ll come back.’ Embarrassed, Jim blushed and squirmed and freed himself. ‘I’ll come back,’ he mumbled."(185) The death of Jim’s father might be burden too heavy for Cissy, but overprotection by Cissy is a burden to Jim. Positively or negatively, the death of Jim’s father in the past affected the lives of Jim and Cissy Glass over the period of time.

The short story "My Father’s Heart," which is the story of grown up Jim, also deals with Jim’s father, but Jim himself is contrasted with his father. Because Jim’s father is dead, people finds his father’s aspect from him and run back over the past. Cissy who depends overall to Jim, always tells him "Every small kindness I did my mother, she repaid by telling me I had my father’s heart."(173) She remarks that his father is being alive inside of him, and that did sometimes raise anxiety to every single behavior of Jim. If Jim’s work seems to turn out to be good to his mother, it was because he had his father’s blood, however if it did not, then it was because he had Glass’s blood, referring to his mother "‘Glasses have no real ambitions beyond themselves. They do only that which makes them happy.’"(194) To conclude, the reminder of his father takes a big role and forms the basic concept of Jim’s life.

Earley’s essay, "Deer Season", reveals when the author was a boy, remembering the event that made him shameful to his father. When his father told his boy to stay on the tree while he left for his hunting, the boy ultimately came down and truly recognized his fault when his father returned and said "‘Boy, don’t you know better than to shit under your tree?’ That was all he had to say. I was instantly filled with shame."(55) The boy was scared because he had let down his father, failing himself into a shame thinking that his father would be disappointed about him as the son. The author views himself in the event as "and that I, simply because I was thirteen years old, applied his hard question, by extension, to the rest of my life."(55-56) This sentence expresses how much this past occasion was weighty to his life as a child, and is still remarkable to him as an adult.

The concept of the weight of the past in Tony Earley’s writings always serves as a significant role or fundamental atmosphere, which sometimes supplements the formation of characters and explains the event. The weight of the past is an noticeable characteristic of Earley’s voice that detach from others.

Works Cited

Earley, Tony. "Deer Season, 1974." Somehow Form a Family. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2001. 51-6.

- - -. Jim the Boy. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2002.

- - -. "My Father’s Heart." Here We Are in Paradise : Stories. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1994. 169-98.