The Best Daddy and Breakfast on Track

“The Best Daddy”

The father displays his deep care for both his daughters. First, he does not forget his daughter’s thirteenth birthday. This demonstrates his role as a parent, parents are supposed to remember their children’s birthdays. This is evident where he says, “It’s a helluva thing to have to tell your daughter on her birthday” (Silverstein, 383). When Lisa says, “you got me a dead pony for my birthday” (Silverstein, 383) it means that the father knew it was her birthday. Second, his love and affection for his children is also evident when he tells Lisa that he would never shoot his other daughter Cathy. This is because parents are expected to protect their children and the father knows that his children are precious to him.

In addition, he is the epitome of fathers because he remembers what Lisa wanted for her birthday. Lisa wanted a motorbike, and he goes out of his way to buy her one. This means that he listens to his children and addresses their needs. The father is also inconsiderate because he buys Lisa, who is thirteen, a motorbike. Many would see this as an irresponsible move because she is too young to ride a motorbike. The father is also humorous because he uses ‘April Fools’ to make his daughter laugh before he gives her the present. He starts with the dead pony then his daughter Cathy but both ‘deaths’ do not please Lisa.

The daughter loves animals. This is evident when she becomes upset when the father tells her that he shot her birthday pony. It deeply saddened her when the “pony” was covered, and she thought it was sick. She is sensitive and fragile because the life of the pony meant more to her than her own birthday. She thought her father was cruel because he shot her birthday pony. Her tantrums are those of a typical teenager. She is inquisitive and disappointed about what happened to the ‘pony’ and her ‘sister’s body’.

Lisa is gullible. She believes everything her father tells her. When he said that he shot her birthday pony, she believed him and got upset. When her father told her that he shot her little sister Cathy, she could not believe his level of cruelty. She thought her father was cruel and vicious for telling her that he had shot her pony and Cathy. However, she loves her father because he remembered her birthday and got her what she had always wanted, the red motorbike. Her love is displayed when she says, “you’re the bestest daddy in the whole world” (Silverstein, 390) and kissed him. She loves her father because she realizes that he did not shoot the pony and her sister Cathy.

“Breakfast on Track”

The fact that S and H operate at different times of the day is funny. H is a morning person while S is a night person. This difference creates humor in how they relate to each other especially considering they have been married for two years. H wakes up at six thirty because he wants to experience the sunrise and S thinks it is the middle of the night. S is irritated every time H wakes up because she feels that he wakes up too early and disrupts her sleep. Her anger is displayed when she keeps saying, “I’ll kill” and “who’s there? What’s happening?”, and this is very funny (Wilson, 190). This outburst happens every morning because she says, “its pitch ***black, you do this every morning” (Wilson, 190).

It is also funny when S asks to be woken up after she has slept for eight hours. H tells her that he cannot do that because he does not know what time she went to sleep. S assumes that her husband knows what time she went to sleep and just wants to go back to sleep. She is always asleep during the day and does not know the date and month. In relationships, usually the woman remembers the important dates and the importance of spending time together. In this short play, these roles have been reversed. H wants to have breakfast with his wife at the tracks while she wants to sleep, which is what she seems to do all day since they went on their vacation.

Comic effect is felt when S says, “sick is being unable to sleep more than two hours because you’ll miss the sunrise” and “if you try to make a virtue out of neurotic behavior” (Wilson, 192). S does not understand how her husband loves the sunrise so much, that he would wake up at six thirty and interrupt her sleep. She finds it hard to believe that her husband of two years has not embraced the fact that she does not wake up because she needs to sleep for at least eight hours while he only needs four hours of sleep. The theme of marriage is brought out because the play is about a husband and wife who do not spend any time together while on vacation because the wife is always asleep.

S complains that she got bruises from trying to cuddle with her husband. “If I snuggle up to you you elbow me in the ribs” (Wilson, 193). Picturing this happening is quite comical. H is always asleep a few minutes after they get home in the evening and this hinders their spending any time together. He complains of his wife who does not want to be touched in the morning. He says, “I cuddle up to you and I get screamed at” (Wilson, 193). S finds it hard to stay awake for more than ten seconds. It is funny how she gets so startled when she awakens from her sleep and forgets about her previous conversation with H.

Work cited

Silverstein, Shel. “The Best Daddy.” Laugh Lines: Short Comic Plays. Ed. Eric Lane and Nina Shengold. New York: Random House, 2007. 381-390. Print.

Wilson, Lanford. Four Short Plays: Days Ahead, the Madness of. New York: Dramatists Play Serv, 1994. Print.