Welding With Children Character Analysis

Chuck Palahniuk once said, “We’ve spent so much time judging what other people created, that we’ve created very, very little of our own.” Bruton, the protagonist in the short story “Welding with Children” is a very subjective character that judges all around him, yet fails to realize that he has a relatively colossal problem in his life. There is discord within his family and specifically with his grandchildren and Bruton becomes conscious that the past has caught up with him. Tim Gautreaux’s characterization of Bruton portrays a comical, yet compassionate image of how judgement and lack thereof can cause a character’s perspective to change and establish a theme. Gautreaux uses the protagonist’s judgement of his own family and others to give a vision into his present and past life, but when he is judged, he is revolutionized and makes an effort to redeem and restore his character.

When examining Bruton’s personality, the reader can sense that he is a sarcastic, hardworking welder that did not succeed in college, but learned about “people

None of his girls were raised in church, because he assumed that his wife would do it. The reader can infer that Bruton was not a very engaged father to his daughters because of the way that they each turned out. Realization has set in and Bruton sees that he can’t get back the precious time that he wasted with his own daughters. Trying to avoid making the same mistake with his grandchildren as he did with his own children, Bruton reaches out to someone for advice, Mr. Fordlyson. When Bruton approaches Fordlyson, he is sitting under the town’s famous tree of knowledge, and that is exactly what he bestows on Bruton. Bruton is convicted of his lack of commitment to going to church, so Bruton cleans up physically, spiritually, and mentally. In the end, he finally realizes what a good dad looks like after Nu-Nu recognizes him as