George Saunder’s main character in “The Falls”, Morse, throughout the story is looking for validation from his family. As one critic has written about Saunders characters, “Saunders's exuberantly weird stories recount Americans' mostly futile attempts at self-improvement, the terrible dread of failure -- or damnation. In all of his unsentimental stories, Saunders commiserates with the dispirited, the weak, and the flawed” Saunders is able to draw his readers into his short stories because each character, as pathetic as they may be, depicts a real person that each reader can relate too. Morse represents a typical father in today’s society worried if he is a good father and husband. He is simply trying to get by and provide for his family.
The “Falls” is about two middle aged men who walk the same path, but at the crossroads choose a completely different route. Morse over thinks everything, and at times the reader may think he is afraid of his own shadow. The first impression of Morse is, he is not a good father, husband, and definitely can not provide for his family. Morse's conflicting feelings of his wife are he still loves her even though she incisively hen pecks Morse and blames him for their poverty. His wife, Ruth, is a woman that doesn't appreciate her husband. She criticizes him because of what he doesn’t do, or at least in her eyes what she thinks he should be doing but doesn’t. She even drags her son to the local Tae Kwon to watch and admire and have a fantasy affair with the instructor Master Li to compensate what is lacking at home. Morse loves his children, but seems to think he falls short by not being able to provide a good home for them and their simple wants and needs. He is a push over when it comes to his children. When his son doesn’t want to practice the piano and starts to “blubber” and becomes passive aggressive, Morse gives in, despite the fact that he knows he must be a bit firm in order to get his son to practice the piano. The...