What would you get if you paired a tale about a bratty prince and a streetwise whipping boy with a fictional portrait of America in the 1930s? You would get a study of the father-son relationship that is so compelling it would make the powerful weapons of the Second Punic War seem like oversized toys. This study, one that compares the adolescent males in The Whipping Boy with the narrator in Invisible Man, presents every male child's odyssey to adulthood. It describes each male's striving, in the words of the Apostle Paul, "to put away childish things." In order to do this, they must first address the soul-warring elephant in the room—unresolved father-son relationship issues. Using a methodology much like the three-fold chord of King Solomon, this study ties together Erik Erikson's Psychosocial Development Theory, sociological and psychological academic studies, and the Word of GOD to demonstrate correlation between father-son relationships and psychosocial development. More than fascinating, this study uncovers both the causes and effects of Godless mentoring.
