Rocket Boys

¶ … Rocket Boys by Homer Hickam, Jr. Specifically, it will compare and contrast the author, Homer Hickam, Jr. And his Father. Homer and his father seem to be from two different worlds that can never come together. Home has ambition and dreams, and his father cannot see past their small West Virginia coal-mining town.

The main difference between Home and his father is that Homer has dreams, and his father only wants to smash those dreams, because he thinks they will never come true, and his son will only end up bitter and disappointed. In the end, Homer is stronger than his father, and the man his father cannot be, because he has grown beyond him, and the small West Virginia coal-mining town. Homer's father works as a superintendent in the mine, and his life revolves around the mine.

Because of this, he cannot see that the mine and the town are dying, and the future lies away from Coalwood. Homer Jr. can see the town is slowly dying, and so, he wants to leave the town and make something important and valuable out of his life. He works on the rocket because he wants to work with Werner von Bruan building rockets that will take men into space. He is not consumed with the mine, as his father his.

Hickam writes, "Dad rarely came home from the mine, and when he did, he ate the cold leavings. I fully expected the rest of my life in Coalwood to go on exactly like this" (Hickam 256). Unfortunately, he can see there is no future in his hometown, but his father is blind to that, he is so consumed with the mine. Homer's father tries to get in the way of his rocket building because he is afraid.

He is afraid Homer will not succeed, or will succeed, but will have nowhere but the mines to go, and that he will end up bitter and disappointed. To him, there is no life other than the mine. He tells his son, "There's no men in the world like miners, Sonny. They're good men, strong men. The best there is'" (Hickam 173).

He is really telling his son that he cannot envision any other life for him than the only one he knows, and so, he gets in the way of Homer's dreams, because he does not think he can accomplish them. Homer's mother tells him, "You'd be some kind of clerk working for your dad, sitting at a typewriter pecking out forms, or writing in a ledger about how many tons got loaded in a day. That's the best your dad thinks you can do'" (Hickam 43).

Really, that is the best his dad thought he could do for himself. He had no other ambition but to work in the mine, and he has no other ambition for his son. He is afraid his son will outshine him if he leaves Coalwood, and he is right. In the end, Homer's father is right. Homer has outgrown him, and does not need the protection of his family and the coal mine anymore.

He has reached his dreams, and he knows he will leave West Virginia and work for NASA at Cape Canaveral. He is a dreamer, but he has the tenacity to make his dreams come true, and so, he has surpassed his father and his father's abilities. At the end of the novel, when Homer's rockets are all successful, his father is proud, and the moment brings father and son together, finally.

Hickam remembers, "I [...] waited patiently, and with hope, for him to put his arm around my shoulder and tell me, at last, that I had done something good" (Hickam 362).