As I read John Hughes’ “Vacation ’58,” I reminisced on my
childhood family vacations. Of course, I did not completely relate to the
story, as my dad never did the things the narrator’s dad did to that extent.
However, I did find it relatable because I remembered how my dad would always
be worried about the time and having the “perfect” family vacation as my mom
would nag him about making sure to stop for food and rest. In other words, to
my dad, everything had to be on a tight schedule whereas to my mom, everything
had to be planned around meals and sleep. By the end of most of my family
vacations, as in Hughes’ “Vacation ’58,”
my parents would be exhausted and would have reached a mild state of craziness.
This usually indicated a time to go home and get back to reality. I also saw
this in Hughes’ story in which both parents had reached a similar state by the
end of the story. This was quite amusing because Hughes had played with the
idea of a family vacation. There was a sense of incongruity and contradiction:
a vacation is meant for a time to relax, enjoy and unwind yet parents on family
vacations tend to worry and stress.
The story was relatable. But even more,
it was exaggerated to an extreme. It took a typical family vacation and
exaggerated it and the different stereotypical personalities. As
aforementioned, you had the dad who was concerned about the schedule and the
mom who made sure everybody was well fed and well rested. I found it
particularly amusing at the beginning when the mom had thought she had left the
oven on so they had to go back home to see that it was, in fact, switched off.
Then, she insisted that they might as well stay home for lunch even though they
were already behind their schedule. This reminded me of something my mom has
done before like realizing she had forgotten to pack our passports when we
would be halfway to the airport. Furthermore, Hughes especially exaggerated the
dad personality as, for example, the dad disregarded the cruel death of Aunt
Edythe’s dog and the death of Aunt Edythe herself. Instead, he insisted with
moving on with their schedule.
Hughes also created stereotypical family
personalities, such as the old Aunt Edythe, the baby and the brother who was
always asleep, to name a few. I believe that the narrator’s character was the
least exaggerated in that most children, still learning their morals, would
find anything amusing and would see their dad as some sort of action hero. Yes,
his character was exaggerated to an extent but I believe that his character was
typical of a young boy’s because he was extremely excited even during the
police chase. In the end, I believe it just goes to show that parents do not
need to stress and create the “perfect” holiday for their children as their
children will find anything entertaining. Overall, Hughes had exaggerated the
personalities and events of a typical family vacation. The events became
increasingly exaggerated as the story progressed, from being behind schedule,
to the dad attempting to shoot Walt Disney. It was particularly amusing because
everything that could have gone wrong went wrong. For example, even through all
the trouble of travelling to Disneyland, they arrived to find that it was
closed for maintenance.
Hughes took something familiar and
exaggerated it. In a way, for me personally, it induced nostalgia; it took all
my memories of “failed” family vacation experiences and made them key moments.
It built a sense of authenticity to my childhood vacations and made those
unoriginal “Disneyland” family trips unique. This is why I appreciated Hughes’
story. Also, it highlighted this idea of how a tragedy could become a comedy
over time.
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