Responding to his teacher's assignment that he should go and see President Herbert Hoover on Saturday and write an essay about the meeting, Chinaski wrote: "Saturday? There was no way I could go. I had to mow the lawn. I had to get the hairs. (I could never get all the hairs.) Almost every Saturday I got a beating with the razor strop because my father found a hair. (I also got stropped during the week, once or twice, for other things I failed to do or didn't do right.) There was no way I could tell my father that I had to go and see President Hoover" (p. 82). Chinaski did not go to see the President but he still wrote the essay. He made it up. Chinaski's father made it clear to him that the society is ruthless and that you need to stand up for yourself with violence if necessary. His father also placed so many restrictions on his life, forcing him to lie....

Lying over and over turns a person into a pathological liar. Throughout the book, Chinaski admits so many times that he lied to this or that person. Although Chinaski suffered so much because of his father's abusive treatment, he also became an abuser and a nasty person. He tells of so many bad things he did to others. One last important thing is that the relationship with his father made him a writer. His father made him an insular person. So, Chinaski needed to release his emotions and thoughts somewhere. And he began writing. He put his emotions and thoughts into writing. Something good also came out of the horrible relationship he had with his father. But both his positive and negative characteristics were influenced by his relationship with his father.
Works Cited

Bukowski, Charles. Ham on Rye. Santa Rosa, CA: Black Sparrow, 1982.