Father Not Like Son

"I had rarely had reason to enter my father's room prior to this occasion and I was newly struck by the smallness and starkness of it. Indeed, I recall my impression at the time was of having stepped into a prison cell, but then this might have had as much to do with the pale early light as with the size of the room or the bareness of its walls. For my father had opened his curtains and was sitting, shaved and in full uniform, on the edge of his bed from where evidently he had been watching the sky turn to dawn. At least one assumed he had been watching the sky, there being little else to view from his small window other than roof-tiles and guttering."

It seems strange that the first comparison that this man makes of his father's bedroom is that it reminds him of a prison cell. Stevens sounds off put by how small and confined he is in the man's room. Considering the man's aspirations were to be just like his father, it's important to see that since the man is also wearing a uniform which symbolizes a prison uniform. Even in the comfort of his own quarters, the man is unable to realax, he keeps up the clean shaven appearance that is required for his profession, he is ready for the day before dawn even in troubled times.

He goes further by explaining the confines of the room, starting by the size and the fact that there is no sign of personalizing the walls which have remained bare. It didn't have a view either which says that more than just being confined, but being trapped by not being able to see anything. Their is also the difference between how Steven's sees that room looking at all the details of how it wasn't up to what he had imagined for his father who he had obviously always looked up to based on the disappointment he feels when he sees the room. His father on the other hand was looking at the change from night to dawn. This typically symbolizes happiness and fresh starts. Therefore, his father is content with his life, but Stevens sees the unhappiness concerning this life.