Raymond Carver's "My Father's Life," explores the theme of father-son relationships. While Carver looks up to his father (especially when his father made comebacks in life), he also wants to learn from his father's many mistakes. Although he loves his father, Carver was partly ashamed of his father throughout life. When getting a ride home, he pretends he lives at the neighbor's house because he is embarrassed by his own house. He does not even like the fact that he is named after his father. Unfortunately Carver does not know any other life, and ends up similarly to his father: roaming from town to town working and struggling with alcoholism. From my perspective, the essay is both an analysis of Carver's father and his mistakes, as well as an analysis of how Carver himself did not do much to try and avoid the same mistakes he so easily identifies in his father. Perhaps the father is partly to blame. He did not educate his son to become more successful. When Carver writes the poem about his father's picture, he says, "Father, I love you/ yet how can I say thank you, I who can't hold my liquor either/and don't even know the places to fish . I identify with Carver in that it is a struggle to learn from other's mistakes when it is the only life one knows. I have an acquaintance that lacks ambition just as his father before him did. Although their family and friends love them just as Carver loved his father, my acquaintance and his father follow dead-end jobs just to get by. I could write an essay chronicling the acquaintance's upbringing and how it different from the more "ambitious" students in my grade. It was clear that this student was aiming to settle for his present levels of achievement, possibly because he gave up on making something more of himself. I remember him saying in high school that it is not worth it to try to get good grades and go to college, because a college education is not necessary in life and that no one in our school could get into a decent college anyway. I cannot, however, criticize his way of life. Perhaps it is significant that no matter how unsuccessful you are, other people can still respect and love you. For example, at Carver's father's funeral, a random woman and one of Carver's father's cousins expressed sincere condolences even though Carver's father was not a perfect man. In between World Wars I and II, America suffered from hunger and unemployment. This all happened because of the huge economic crisis, which struck the whole world in 1929. It is not unusual that this type of crisis can lead man into alcoholism and gambling, and quickly, a whole family can be on the edge of destruction. This is exactly what Raymond Carver describes in his novel "My Father's Life  from 1984. In his novel, Raymond Carver describes his father's life, starting with his death and continuing with how he met his wife. The story goes on, telling about their poor life, his alcoholism, gambling and his unfaithfulness. The father is named Clevie Raymond Carver and he is roughly described as a drunkard, who has a hard time finding work and staying faithful to his wife. He has had a lot of mistresses since he got married, which does not bother him the slightest. He is restless and seeks happiness, which he has a hard time finding. Although he seems cold and heartless at some points, it seems that he cares a lot about his friends and coworkers: "( ¦)he stood in the crowd and heard Franklin D. Roosevelt when he spoke at the construction side. "He never mentioned those guys who died building that dam,' my dad said. Some of his friends had died there." When Raymond Clevie Carver Jr. was born, Clevie had a construction job at a sawm