42 pages • 1 hour read
Richard FordIndependence Day
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1995A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 7-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 7 Summary
Frank wakes up the next morning and immediately hits the road. While stopping for coffee, he calls Sally. Unable to reach her, he feels an increasing anxiety that he may have ruined things between them. He calls to check in with Karl, and he also calls Ted Houlihan to follow up to the showing the day before. Frank becomes even more suspicious that Ted is not entirely trustworthy and could be angling to sell his house through some other means. Frank asserts an empty warning of legal action, reminding him of the exclusivity of his firm’s right to offer. This posture has very little effect on Ted.
Frank nears the town of Deep River, Connecticut, where Ann and the kids live with Charley O’Dell. As he gets closer and closer, Frank’s dread increases. Specifically, he hopes that he does not have to see Charley at all. Frank makes clear his hatred of Charley and recalls an incident that took place soon after the two first met. What started as a harmless conversation nearly became physical and ended with Frank making aggressive threats at Charley. Frank was not having any of Charley’s peace offerings.
As Frank finally arrives at the O’Dell residence, he notices a dead bird directly under a sign stating that the area is a bird sanctuary. Frank picks up the bird and flings it into the bushes. He fears that the bird was killed and placed under the sign intentionally, perhaps by his son Paul. Just as he tosses the bird into the bushes, Frank is approached by a security guard named Erik who is bent on interrogating Frank and finding out his purpose for being at the O’Dell residence and in this private, exclusive neighborhood generally. After some mild harassment and verification, Erik leaves Frank alone. Frank proceeds to the residence and meets with his daughter Clarissa outside in the yard. After spending a little time playfully chatting with Clarissa, Frank notices Ann on the porch of the home. While waiting for Paul, he and Ann have a lengthy conversation which centers on their marital woes. Compared to Ann, Frank seems stuck in the past, hanging on to the hope of reconciliation. By contrast, Ann has moved on, and the nature of their discussion highlights this divide. The conversation shifts to a discussion of Paul and his psychological state. Finally, Paul arrives, and he and Frank depart on their journey.
Chapter 8 Summary
Frank and Paul head north from Deep River to Springfield, Massachusetts to visit the Basketball Hall of Fame. As part of Frank’s strategy to help his son, he has brought along his personal copy of Emerson’s Self Reliance and a copy of The Declaration of Independence. He also has an agenda of discussion possibilities which include the nature of freedom and independence as perceived by the founding fathers, specifically Jefferson and Adams. When Frank tries to introduce the subject of the framers, Paul, as is his wont, becomes ironical and snide, pretending that Frank said farmers, not framers. Frank quickly gives up on his plan to hold an intellectual conversation with Paul, who is disinterested and contrarian. Their conversation is strained, and Frank is relieved when they finally stumble upon the Basketball Hall of Fame.
As they finally enter the building, Frank notes that the shrine is quiet and set up like a funeral home. He comments on Paul’s style of dressing, arguing that it seems a disguise of some kind. As they tour the hall, they hold a conversation that is led by Paul’s sarcasm and Frank’s attempts at meeting him on his level. Frank makes a quick call to Sally and finally reaches her. He invites her to meet them at their next stop in Cooperstown the following day. Their previous discussion is revealed as a misunderstanding, which Frank made worse by his total misread of the situation. Sally says to Frank that she wishes he would have stayed there.
After the phone conversation, Frank catches up with Paul at an exhibit called “The Shootout,” which is essentially an arcade style game that involves shooting different baskets while on a conveyor belt. There is another boy playing the game, a gifted athlete who, much to the delight of his father, is sinking baskets one after the next. Sees this as a challenge, Frank tries the game but performs terribly. After his turn, he urges Paul to try. Paul agrees to it, but instead of participating in the game, he merely stands still on the conveyor, staring blankly ahead. Paul mentions to Frank that he liked what he did, suggesting that it had some kind of therapeutic value for him. This experience offers a breakthrough for Frank and Paul, though it is short-lived. They leave Springfield and travel to Cooperstown. On the way, Paul has picked up Frank’s copy of Self-Reliance. Frank hopes that this is a good sign, but Paul’s attitude has turned back to snide. Paul asks Frank a variety of non-sequitur questions and rips a page from the Emerson, an act which finally causes Frank to lose patience.
As they arrive in Cooperstown, their conversation grows increasingly heated, culminating in Paul calling Frank by his first name. Frank swears at Paul, ordering Paul not to call him Frank. There is a quiet that follows Frank’s outburst that suggests Paul receives the message regarding where Frank’s boundaries are. Finally, they arrive at the Deerslayer Inn where they will be staying.
Chapters 7-8 Analysis
Much of Frank’s internal monologues to this point have hinted at his political beliefs and the cynicism that resides at the center of these. On his drive from the motel to Deep River, Frank travels through a few small towns in Connecticut, where he notices intermittent yellow ribbons adoring the houses of these towns. Frank is unsure for whom these ribbons are intended but speculates that there must be an American hostage somewhere. If there are no hostages, Frank says the ribbons are then merely “wishful thinking, a yearning for another Grenada-type tidy-little-war which worked out so happily for all concerned” (224). The conflict with Grenada occurred in 1983 and involved a brief U.S. military intervention intended to ward off the spread of communism in the Caribbean. U.S. Marines were killed during the conflict. Frank says, “Patriotic feelings are much more warming when focused on something finite, and there’s nothing like focusing on kicking somebody’s ass or depriving them of their freedom to make you feel free as a bird yourself” (224). In addition to the obvious sarcasm here, Frank’s observation is that patriotism best flourishes when there is a specific enemy. That he says this sarcastically demonstrates his contempt at the way something natural and even good in Frank’s view—love of country—is manipulated against people to create support for stifling the freedom of others.
When Frank and Paul finally begin their journey together, Frank is very optimistic that he can provide a beneficial and soothing influence on his son. As part of his strategy to help Paul, Frank feels that an intellectual, rational approach would be highly useful. Frank even refers to his idea, albeit self-deprecatingly, as a syllabus, which he calls, “Reconciling Past and Present: From Fragmentation to Unity and Independence” (259). He sees the drive to unity by the American colonies out of their original fragmentation as a parallel for Paul’s own fragmented past and current state of mind. Frank says, “It’s totally relevant—in my view—to Paul’s difficulty in integrating his fractured past with his hectic present so that the two connect up in a commonsense way and make him free and independent rather than staying disconnected and distracted” (259). Although it is well intended, the strategy is received poorly by Paul, whose sarcasm and defiance immediately force Frank to reconsider his approach. This incident again illustrates once Frank’s inability to properly read a situation and respond accordingly. While his strategy makes sense to him, it is inadequate. Frank cannot lead Paul out of his emotional problems through intellect alone; he must first connect on an emotional level with his son, something that Frank struggles to do but intuitively realizes. Breaking through to his son will require more than a history lesson.
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By Richard Ford
