Becoming And Going By Gerald Hill Summary

In the poem, “Becoming and Going: An Oldsmobile Story” by Gerald Hill the speaker is traveling down a road in the Fort Qu’appelle Valley. He notices his father and his son are also driving down this road. The speaker then begins to list the two men’s characteristics. As he lists them we see that the father and the son have both similarities and differences in their personalities.

The narrator characterizes the son as a young man who “loves the highway” (p.185), which is also the same as the narrator’s father. The two men both enjoy driving on the highways and both enjoy driving fast on the highways. While the men are driving they are both thinking about their girlfriends, with the father “thinking Alice” (p.183) and the son “heading for a date with that red-haired beauty of his” (p.184). That is shown when the two men both pass the narrator on the highway being very cautious when they do to make sure it is safe. Another similarity between the two men is when the narrator states “and like all Hill men, at least the two before him, wouldn’t he rather be playing ball?” (p.185). This shows a similarity between the two men because they both enjoy sports and watching the Rider games, specifically discussing about “who should quarterback the Riders this year.” (p.184). Both men are also very social, have a lot of friends and are

The first differences between the two men are is the cars they drive, the father drives a “58 Chev” while Tom, the son, “drives in his mom’s Camry” (p.184). The second difference between the two men is the music they are listening to. The son listens to The Red Hot Chili Peppers and the father is humming a hymn to pass the time. The major difference between the two men is the vast differences between the generations by what they do for fun with friends and the vehicles they drive. The father is old fashioned while the son is