LIFE SENTENCE The father in Ethan Coen’s short story, “The Boys”, is a man dealing with serious depression. The conflicts in his life have consumed him and he has lost control, a position that his desperately craves. At the midpoint of his years and stranded in a no-man’s-land between his conscience and his trying boys, the father struggles to regain the upper hand on his routine called life. Passages throughout the story reveal …showed first 75 words of 494 total…

…showed last 75 words of 494 total…act of sex appeared as quivering compulsions.” He has locked himself in a prison cell with his wife and boys and he, regrettably, was the one to lock the door and throw away the key. Now, like a donkey being led by a carrot on a string, the father goes through the motions of life. He hopes that his patience is not for nothing and that he will one day regain control of his life.