In Gary Schmidt's The Wednesday Wars, one of Mr. Hoodhood's great ambitions is to pass his architecture firm, Hoodhood and Associates, down to his son Holling when Mr. Hoodhood is ready to retire. Mr. Hoodhood's ambition serves as motive to treat his business as the most important thing in his life, which leaves Holling feeling neglected. In addition, seeing Holling as the heir of the business serves as motivefor Mr. Hoodhood to be...
In Gary Schmidt's The Wednesday Wars, one of Mr. Hoodhood's great ambitions is to pass his architecture firm, Hoodhood and Associates, down to his son Holling when Mr. Hoodhood is ready to retire. Mr. Hoodhood's ambition serves as motive to treat his business as the most important thing in his life, which leaves Holling feeling neglected. In addition, seeing Holling as the heir of the business serves as motive for Mr. Hoodhood to be easily angered anytime he feels Holling behaves in a way that may jeopardize the business.
Mr. Hoodhood ignores and neglects Holling constantly throughout the story. One example can be seen in the opening chapter when Holling goes to his father to express his concern that "Mrs. Baker hates [his] guts." Rather than expressing concern for his son, Mr. Hoodhood demands to know what Holling did to deserve it. The best example of Mr. Hoodhood neglecting Holling is seen when Mr. Hoodhood fails to fulfill his promise to take Holling to the Yankees baseball game on Opening Day.
In addition, multiple examples of Mr. Hoodhood being easily angered by Holling can be seen since the prosperity of the business is more important to Mr. Hoodhood than Holling. For example, when Holling announces, "Dad, Mrs. Baker hates my guts," Mr. Hoodhood replies by reminding him that Hoodhood and Associates is one of the top three architecture firms the Bakers of the Baker Sporting Emporium are choosing between for their new building. He further reminds Holling that anything he did to make Mrs. Baker hate him will equally make other Bakers hate both him and the "name of Hoodhood, which will lead the Baker Sporting Emporium to choose another architect, which will kill the deal for Hoodhood and Associates, which will drive us into bankruptcy, ... and which will mean there will be no Hoodhood and Associates for you to take over" ("September"). Likewise, Mr. Hoodhood is infuriated when he hears rumors about Holling having ruined the cream puffs served by Mrs. Baker to the Wives of Vietnam Soldiers and when he sees that Kowalski and Associates have somehow managed to steal Hoodhood and Associates' design for the new junior high school after Holling has been spending a lot of time with Meryl Lee Kowalski.
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