Short Stories - The Playground

    Recently, we read the novel Fahrenheit 451, as a class. I was surprised to see two short stories added in to the back of the book. They were The Playground and And the Rock Cried Out. My copy of Fahrenheit 451 is older than everyone elses so that is probably the reason for these two short stories. Both of these stories were extremely interesting. They demonstrated ideas similar to Fahrenheit 451. After reading them, I found them to be mildly disturbing or "creepy". All though I cannot fully replicate the words that the author used, I will try to describe them as best as I can. If you are interested, you can read them for yourselves.

    The Playground, starts off with a man who was very ignorant of the world around him, up until his child has started to interact with others. In fact, the very first paragraph is "A thousand times before and after his wife's death Mr. Charles Underhill ignored the Playground on this way to and from his commuter's limited train. He neither liked nor disliked the Playground; he hardly knew it existed". This all changes when his sister mentions taking Jim, his son, to the playground. Not having any recollection of it, Mr. Underhill notes to himself to take a look on his way home from work. What he finds is shocking, the kids are violent and loud, so loud that "A dozen cats thrown among sleeping dogs could not have shrieked as loud", but still Jim seems to want to go. While there, Mr. Underhill meets a boy who happens to know his name, even greets him. Mr. Underhill feels like he knows the boy from somewhere, but stops thinking about it after his mind turns to his son playing in such a dangerous playground.

   The very next day, Carol, his sister, takes Jim to the playground without Charles' approval. After no supervision for 5 minutes, Jim already has a bloody nose and ripped pants. After a lot of fighting with Carol, Charles starts to realize that it is the time for Jim to learn to look after himself, and get to know the true realities of the world. While thinking about such things, Charles happens to walk upon the Playground once again. He sees the boy who recognized him before. After some small talk, the boy introduces himself as Tom Marshall, the father of Tommy Marshall. Tom chose to switch places with his son, so his son wouldn't have to go through all of the pain. The next day, without thinking, Charles takes Jim to the playground, and takes the place of little Jim, condemning himself to what seems like 12 centuries of madness.

   I think obviously, this story is a bit exaggerated,  but it clearly left a mark on me. The father, shut down his interactions with the outside world and became a very passive man after the death of his wife, Ann. Thus when it was time for his son to grow up, everything was a harsh reality to him. Little kids at a playground seemed like chaos to him, so much that he switched places with his son believing it was the right thing. Even after he switches places and becomes a little kid,  he thinks "This is hell" and all the other parents from the playground agreed.