Somehow I liked them a lot. I think they have never understood Jake but I think they loved him a lot but they weren't able to show him their feelings.
I wish we knew more about Jake's mother.
Spoiler:
Somehow I liked them a lot. I think they have never understood Jake but I think they loved him a lot but they weren't able to show him their feelings.
I wish we knew more about Jake's mother.
Spoiler:
Roland would have understood.
I thought his dad was a total jerk, and his mother was too self-absorbed. I was really rooting for Jake toSpoiler:
"People, especially children, aren't measured by their IQ. What's important about them is whether they're good or bad, and these children are bad." ~ Alan Bernard
"You needn't die happy when your day comes, but you must die satisfied, for you have lived your life from beginning to end and ka is always served." ~ Roland Deschain
I know very well that they weren't good parents.. but still I felt sorry for them.
Roland would have understood.
You have a far bigger heart than I. Letti. That's why I like you.
"People, especially children, aren't measured by their IQ. What's important about them is whether they're good or bad, and these children are bad." ~ Alan Bernard
"You needn't die happy when your day comes, but you must die satisfied, for you have lived your life from beginning to end and ka is always served." ~ Roland Deschain
Oh no... I don't think so but thank you for your kind words.
I just see my parents in them I think... I mean I was quite a strange kid myself and they didn't really understand me. They tried their best and they gave me so much but they never knew me. I love and I respect them a lot and now I know I should have told them a lot of things I shouldn't have been so closed I didn't dare to talk about... and damn I was a kid. They should have found the way to me.
But I think I have the best parents all over the world but they are humans as well with lots of mistakes.
Maybe that's why I felt sorry for Jake's parents. I don't know.
Roland would have understood.
I loathed Jake's parents. I felt like King did too. Jake was the product of two selfish, self-absorbed people who didn't give a good god-damn about their child. Luckily they were rich, so they could hire someone to care.
As for him being better off with Roland, I suppose, maybe, but he was still an afterthought...the tower was more important to Roland than Jake.
I almost think that's why Jake had Oy. He had to have someone who gave him unconditional love, and that's the void Oy help fill. He knew Jake needed that.
It's peanut butter jelly time!
"It's his eyes, Roland thought. They were wide and terrible, the eyes of a dragon in human form" - Roland seeing the Crimson King for the first time.
"When the King comes and the Tower falls, sai, all such pretty things as yours will be broken. Then there will be darkness and nothing but the howl of Discordia and the cries of the can toi" - From Song of Susannah
Yep, they were total self obsessed arses and I think after Jake's disappearance they would easily let their sorrow become self pity and thus give themselves (in their own minds) more justification for drinking, snorting and sleeping around.
For your pov Letti, I'd agree that they probably had unhappy lives themselves to feel unable and unaware of how to support and nuture their own child, and thats always sad.
Agreed Darkthoughts, I would think they would just delve deeper into depression and use more drugs as a result.
XIX
"See the TURTLE of enormous girth,
On his shell he holds the earth.
If you want to run and play,
Come along the BEAM today."
NFA JJG 42-95
Sure thing Chassit - King really has a knack of observing that side of life in his books.
There is a problem when your house keeper knows whats going on in your kids life more then you do. His da had way to many problems and was a workaholic but with his job i wanted to know who keeps a Kruger in a desk? and as for his mum shes pliable she bends to the stronger so shes praticlly useless for anything
"Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem." -PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN, 1985-"We have two companies of MARINES running all over this island and thousands of ARMY troops doing nothing!" -GEN. JOHN VESSEY, CHAIRMAN OF JOINT CHIEFS
Reminded me of mine. Except we were broke.
"The Constitution shall never be construed....to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms" (Samuel Adams, Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 86-87)
I hope Black 13 sent Jake's parents into eternal todash. Hated them.
The 2 characters were well used by King in the Book.
Typical of a certain kind of parent in real life nowadays. They had too much happening in their own lives to be seriously interested in Jake's day-to-day life.
But yes, there were certainly indications that they loved him, in their own way, and were concerned about him. They were just too inneffective to do anything meaningful about it.
My overall feelings for them & their loss of jake?
Indifference, I guess...
Count me into the "despised them" camp. I've said before that Jake Chambers is possibly my fav fictional character, certainly my fav character in DT. A good deal of that is because I see a lot of my own childhood in Jake's, with one exception, I had great parents. As far as the strangeness and the loneliness and the lack of real friends, that seemed very familiar to me, but the parents, that's where I really felt terribly for Jake. I don't doubt that Jake's parents did love him on some level, but they'd have been wise to make sure he knew that they did. I didn't talk to my parents a lot when I was his age but I always knew if I absolutely had to, I could and I didn't have to fear them as Jake did his father.
Its funny, because I can usually identify with parents of all shapes and sizes.
I remember reading these two and thinking there was no way I could identify with any part of either of them.
The kindness of close friends is like a warm blanket
they always seemed to me a little exaggerated as characters. As if Mr.King decided to make his own task easier, not making Jake face the horrible choice between the world behind the door and normal parents.
Last edited by Jean; 09-08-2009 at 11:37 AM.
Ask not what bears can do for you, but what you can do for bears. (razz)
When one is in agreement with bears one is always correct. (mae)
bears are back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I must disagree, Jean.
First of all I don't think that King is that type of author who chooses the easier way... no, I don't think so. He writes what he must write. Even if it made Jake's choice easier (I am not sure about it at all) that's how it had to be.
- Anyway if you look at the psychological part of it usually the kids who are treated badly by their parents (even if they are hit or even worse) love and are hooked on their parents much more than the well-treated ones. It's a fact. -
Secondly, what do you mean by normal parents?? Most of the parents (if not all) make lots of mistakes and many of them are big. I do love my parents and I respect them but when I look back... they could make horrible things.
So for me Jake's parents are absolutely normal. I might live in a darker world but they are. They didn't hit him to coma they gave him food they loved him but they couldn't show it... so in my eyes they weren't mosters at all and they were absolutely normal. Not good. Not at all. But normal.
Last edited by Jean; 09-08-2009 at 11:37 AM.
Roland would have understood.
I wouldn't say deprived/abused kids love their parents more than well treated kids, but I'm sure they crave normal love more, as a result of not receiving it.
I see what you're saying, sure they didn't physically abuse him, but they neglected him emotionally. I don't think they were monsters either, but they weren't normal parents in my eyes, they were too self involved - I consider normal to be a parent who was able to put his/her child's needs before that of their own the majority of the time.So for me Jake's parents are absolutely normal. I might live in a darker world but they are. They didn't hit him to coma they gave him food they loved him but they couldn't show it... so in my eyes they weren't mosters at all and they were absolutely normal. Not good. Not at all. But normal.
I don't think normal is perhaps the best word, its very PC but my Dad and his other social worker colleagues use the term "good enough parent" instead of normal and abnormal - I guess it casts less aspersions, but I think the PC term is, for once, better in this context
Dark, that's a good distinction with the PC thing.
I certainly would not call Jakes parents 'normal' either - it just would'nt ring true for me - but 'good enough' ? Maybe...
I see where Letti's coming from though - these 2 did not wrong Jake in any way by intent, but purely by neglect (not any physical neglect no, but emotional yes). They were not 'bad' parents, certainly not 'great' ones, and for me they probably fall a bit short of 'good' too.
Lisa & Brian, I am with you both. "Normal" can be a bit subjective. Neglectful and self-absorbed would be accurate descriptors. Those are not qualities that make for good parents, but I agree that they never intentionally hurt Jake. I think they were a bit too self-absorbed to realize they were doing anything "wrong."
Yes, for me they were people that probably had a child because it was part of what they thought you should do, rather than considering if they actually wanted to, or if they had the time and emotional stability it takes to be a parent.
I agree completely. Jake was more of an accessory than a human being to them.