Love between Parents and Children

There are several manifestations of this theme in For one more day. Throughout the novel love between parents and children is sought, rejected, offered, withheld, surrendered to, reviled and revered, lost and rediscovered. As such, it's portrayed as one of the most, if not the most, important source of emotional motivation in a person's life. Chick's father feels it, but expresses it in a limited way, and wants Chick to express his love in similar limited fashion. Chick struggles desperately to live within these terms, but finds he's simply unable to do so, either to his own satisfaction or his father's. As a parent himself, Chick feels love for his daughter and makes a degree of effort to do better by her, but finds himself handicapped by his crippling determination to please and win affection from his father, even on his father's limited terms...