In Andrew Hood’s Now Watch This, the strange setting represents the contrast between the father and son. The ominous-looking correctional facility is placed right next to the beautiful and calm pond to bring out the potential for violence the father has discovered within himself. Near the beginning of the story when the father and son take their shoes off, they take in the scenery and notice something odd. “Across the pond, past the gravelly, unkempt ball diamond, the correctional facility loomed like an old world castle.” There is a clear contrast in the scenery; the beauty of nature alongside a creepy and haunting prison looming over.
Similarly, there is also a contrast between the father and son. The father is a bookworm, a loner, and lazy whereas the son is athletic, popular, and a soccer star. Furthermore, the pond symbolizes Ev with his innocence and youth, and the threatening prison symbolizes the inner violence the father has inside him. Right after the kid kicked Ev during the soccer match; his father suddenly became violently protective and discovered a secret man born inside him. “Not paying attention to Ev’s penalty kick, I was imagining all the intricate ways I could kill that twelve-year-old showboat. It wasn’t movie violence I dreamt, but limbic, ancestral savagery. These were fantasies I didn’t know I had inside me.” This violent fantasy shows to how far the father would go to protect his son. The correctional facility heavily represents the hidden violence of an inmate the father possesses. It’s unexpected to see someone who looks calm and gentle to have these homicidal thoughts, just like how it’s unexpected to see a correctional facility looming over a placid and peaceful setting.
Since the father and son are both very contrary to each other, just like the setting, the father admires his son a lot for the different things he likes to do. At the beginning of the story when they are placing their shoes beside each other’s, the father gets an instant flashback. “Seeing his small cleats beside my big Vans reminded me of the time, in the delivery room, when I first fit my thumb into his tiny palm. My first thought was not how small he was, but how big I actually was.” This passage indicates how surprised he is by his own strength and size. He still feels like he’s a stepfather of Ev, since they don’t share many similarities. Yet he tries hard to feel like his father by showing up at his son’s games and showing his support in something he’s completely not interested in.
Even when he wanted to try to defend Ev at the soccer match where an opponent hit him, after the vicious thoughts of killing him, he claimed to have a secret man born inside of him the same day his son was born. This “man” has triggered the killer instinct in the father. During the soccer match, the father admires his son as he observes his every move from afar. “The trajectory is beautiful. It’s one of those perfect things that occur in nature sometimes.” This occurs right after Ev kicks the ball. It’s clear that the dad is in total awe of his son as he in in nature. His loves his son for being popular and successful in sports; something he has never been. It comes to show the bond between father and son no matter how contrary they are to each other.
