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Tara Westover’s bestselling memoir Educated (2018) is a nonfiction work that explores, among other topics, the power an authoritarian father exercises over his extended family. In Westover’s recollections of her childhood, she depicts a father who isolates his family and controls what they eat, what work they are allowed to do, what medical care they receive, and—critically for Westover—what education they may receive. Westover writes the memoir after having broken away from this patriarchal control to seek her own path through college education.
William Shakespeare’s famous tragedy Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (published 1603) explores, among other themes, the powerful influence that men in authority have on those who depend on them. The father-son relationships of King Hamlet and Prince Hamlet and of Polonius and Laertes examine how loyalty and love both bind people together and sometimes blind people to each other’s flaws. Polonius’ authority over his daughter Ophelia takes a particularly tragic turn when he places his service to King Claudius, a known usurper and abuser of authority, over his daughter’s well-being.
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Louisa May Alcott’s semi-autobiographical novel Little Women (1868–1869) depicts parental authority figures in a positive light. Marmee, mother of the four March sisters, and Mr. March, their father and a chaplain in the Union army, unfailingly guide their daughters with love and wisdom while nurturing each girl’s particular interests and gifts. In a later novel, Little Men (1871), Alcott valorizes Professor Bhaer, whose principled and kind guidance of boys attending his boarding school helps them mature into good men. Though the depictions of these parental figures may be somewhat romanticized, these parents model appropriate uses of authority for Alcott’s time.
Charles Dickens’ 1854 novel Hard Times is in large part a study of various men in positions of authority and of the impact, for better but often for worse, on the lives of the young people over whom these men have power. From Josiah Bounderby, with his boasts of being self-made and determination to rise by belittling others, to Thomas Gradgrind, father and schoolmaster whose warped view of education destroys his oldest son and daughter, the novel presents a spectrum of authoritative models. Stephen Blackpool’s self-sacrificial care and Gradgrind’s repentant actions, late in the novel, offer humbler ways to exercise authority. The novel’s three section titles—Sowing, Reaping, and Garnering—suggest the enduring influence authority figures can have in the lives of children.
Like “The Use of Force,” Anton Chekhov’s short story “Ward No. Six” (1892) features a doctor in a position to control his patients, ostensibly for their benefit. Dr. Andrei Yefimich Rabin begins his oversight of Ward No. Six, where mentally ill men reside, optimistically, but soon collapses into defeatism and disengages from his patients. However, reversals of fate cause this doctor to have to assume the position of his patients, leading to his remorse over his indifferent and abusive treatment of them.
