A Father-to-Be by Saul Bellow
"A Father-to-Be" by Saul Bellow features the character Rogin, a research chemist grappling with the complexities of his impending fatherhood and relationship with his fiancée, Joan. As he navigates a Sunday evening trip to buy dinner, Rogin reflects on the dynamics of their partnership, where he financially supports Joan—a beautiful but seemingly dependent woman who struggles to assert her independence. Throughout his journey, he observes the world around him, including fellow subway passengers, prompting deeper introspection about his life choices and potential future.
The narrative captures Rogin's internal conflict, oscillating between love and frustration as he contemplates their relationship's sustainability. His encounters—with a foreign family, two little girls, and an ostentatiously dressed man—evoke feelings of unease, particularly as he begins to envision the implications of fatherhood. Ultimately, the story culminates in a moment of vulnerability and affection as he succumbs to Joan’s nurturing gesture of washing his hair, highlighting the intimate yet complicated nature of their bond. The piece delves into themes of responsibility, desire, and the nuances of romantic relationships, inviting readers to ponder the challenges of love and commitment.
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A Father-to-Be by Saul Bellow
First published: 1955
Type of plot: Domestic realism
Time of work: The 1950's
Locale: New York City
Principal Characters:
Rogin , the protagonist, who lives and works in New York CityJoan , his fiancé
The Story
Rogin, a research chemist entering middle age, is on his way one Sunday evening to have supper with Joan, his fiancé. When she asked him on the telephone to buy some food, he feebly asked what happened to the money he already gave her. He begins to ponder his relationship with Joan. Although beautiful and aristocratic, she is not working and cannot—or will not—support herself without Rogin's help. As he is paying off her debts, she is buying expensive, frivolous presents for him and her sister, Phyllis. However, Rogin thinks, he loves her too much to complain.
At the delicatessen, Rogin is pleased by the smells of the foods and the general aromas of life itself. He admires the counterman who admonishes a Puerto Rican boy in a cowboy hat about to knock over a display. As he buys the food, Rogin recalls how difficult Joan is but also how beautiful. Descending into the subway, he overhears a brief conversation between two men, one of whom confesses to the other that he is an alcoholic currently on a miracle cure. The conversation prompts Rogin to recall his own desperate need for more money.
Seated on the speeding train, Rogin observes his fellow passengers. He sees two little girls with their mothers, each with the same kind of muff, and he notes the annoyance of the mothers and the little girls' complacency. A strange-looking foreign family next engages his attention. The mother is old and worn out, the son looks like a dishwasher. Between them sits a dwarf, an androgynous creature who at once repels and fascinates Rogin. He thinks of the chemistry of sex determination and recalls his dreams of the previous night involving an undertaker, who was cutting his hair, and a woman he was carrying on his head.
The passenger who most affects him, however, is a middle-aged man who strikes Rogin as a dandy. Dressed in expensive clothes, too ostentatiously dapper for Rogin's taste, the stranger somehow irritates him. The man's features remind Rogin of Joan's father, even of Joan herself. Rogin begins to construct a fantastically hypothetical relationship between the man and himself. This man, so resembling Joan, could be what her son would look like in forty years. If Joan were the mother, then he, Rogin, would be the father of this fourth-rate model of responsibility and dullness.
From such contemplation, Rogin briefly considers the possibility of breaking off his relationship with Joan, but in a few minutes he gets off the train and walks to Joan's apartment. When Joan opens the door, Rogin notices a vague resemblance to the stranger on the train, and he is frightened. In a minute, however, he is inside and Joan is kissing him.
In the final scene, Joan insists on washing Rogin's hair. Still irritated by his contemplation of the stranger, he tells himself that he will rebuke Joan and sever their relationship, but when Joan begins to wash his hair, to pamper him, Rogin submits quietly and lovingly.
Bibliography
Bradbury, Malcolm. Saul Bellow. New York: Methuen, 1982.
Braham, Jeanne. A Sort of Columbus: The American Voyages of Saul Bellow's Fiction. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984.
Cronin, Gloria L., and Leila H. Goldman, eds. Saul Bellow in the 1980's: A Collection of Critical Essays. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1989.
Cronin, Gloria L., and Ben Siegel, eds. Conversations with Saul Bellow. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1994.
Goldman, L. H. Saul Bellow: A Mosaic. New York: Peter Lang, 1992.
Hyland, Peter. Saul Bellow. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992.
Newman, Judie. Saul Bellow and History. London: Macmillan, 1984.
Siegel, Ben. "Simply Not a Mandarin: Saul Bellow as Jew and Jewish Writer." In Traditions, Voices, and Dreams: The American Novel Since the 1960's. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1995.
Trachtenberg, Stanley, comp. Critical Essays on Saul Bellow. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1979.