Freewrite...Subject:Bottles...(shortened version)

Scott was haunted by his father's bottles. He would find bottles under his workbench, in his toolbox, under the hay in the ban. It was from these bottles that an alcoholic found his "refuge". But if they were truly a refuge, a good thing, why must they be kept hidden? Bottles were hidden as if no one else knew they existed. But everyone in the family knew they were a haunting part of Scott's father's life. Scott's father's tendency to take gulp after gulp form these bottles caused nothing but pain and anguish.

The bottles represent the father's alcoholism as a whole. Their secretiveness is parallel to the fact that Scott's family would not talk about the problem with anyone outside the family. Both the bottles, and Scott's father's alcoholism, were two not-so-well-kept secrets. Everyone knew they existed, but no one wanted to openly acknowledge them.

The bottle is a concrete object, as well as a symbolic one. Scott's father actually did drink form actual, physical bottles. However, the bottles also represent his alcohol problem and the changes it caused in him. The bottle coincides with his metamorphosis from a sober man to a drunken one, form rational to irrational, and from a living man to a dying one.

Bottles are a very important image. They go with the whole theme. They provide a concrete connection to an abstract thought. They provide an image for the reader to clearly see the extent to which alcohol affected the father. The bottles were so important to him that he bought them in "secret", attempted to hide them, and lied about them. The father would never acknowledge the bottles themselves, or his problem, in front of his children. The bottles were like his "mistresses". He ignored his wife and his children to be with his "mistress", his secret pleasure, but, also, is inevitable downfall.

The bottles were his life, which is ironic, because they caused his death. The father's loyalty to the bottles was so much stronger than his loyalty to his family, and even himself, that he threw away years of being sober and gambled with death. Eventually, he lost, and death won. This happened all because of his love for a bottle filled with poison, basically. He poisoned himself, refusing to release his grip on the bottle. He would leave at times, but then he always returned, to his mistress...