It is the young boy's father who, "clutching" his hand, takes the boy to school. When the boy asks if he is being sent away from home for being a bother, his father assures him that school is not a punishment, but a "factory" which turns boys into men. As he enters the school the boy hesitates, but his father gently pushes him and tells him to "be a man."
The boy's father is an important character in both a literal and a symbolic sense. As a coming-ofage story, "Half a Day" concerns themes of fatherhood and the different stages of human life. The boy's father is seen to represent the narrator himself, at a different stage of life.
He may also symbolize God, who ushers each human being both into and out.....
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