In case you’re not familiar with the parable of the Prodigal Son, I’ll give you the bare outline: A man has two sons, one of whom goes to his father, demands his inheritance (which, in context is not just a request for money but a not-so-subtle “I wish you would HURRY UP and DIE, old man” kind of thing), sails off and squanders every penny getting drunk with idiots. The money runs out, the idiots jump ship, and the son is now crammed full of regrets and tries to sneak home and get a job as a servant. His father sees him coming, is having none of it, and runs out to forgive him before he even apologizes, they embrace.
Also, the other brother is deeply angry that his father would slaughter a calf in celebration for his ne’er-do-well sibling, and says, “You never even gave me and my friends a single goat,” which has to be the greatest complaint in the entirety of religious literature. Anyhow, as you can imagine, this became a popular motif in Western European art for hundreds of years, with the whole “prodigal” aspect of the prodigal son being stressed to…mixed effect.
It’s always really weird to me when someone paints the Prodigal Son as, like, twelve, because it’s tough to imagine him getting into too much debauchery. Very Bart and Milhouse on a Squishee bender. He’s got a flower crown and, if you’ll look carefully, he still has a shirt, it’s just tied around his waist. So…the wages of sin don’t look especially bad here. 2/10, would not redeem.
S O L I D. He doesn’t even have any toes left! His feet are just featureless blocks of foot-skin! He sold his toes just to eat. That is one prodigal son!
Pathetic. A of all, those are crocodile tears. Look at him! That face has insincerity painted all over it! His brother knows what’s up. Look at him. I’ll bet he had a goat, like, yesterday.
This one is set inexplicably in the 1890s and he just looks…vaguely thoughtful? A little shabby, maybe, but college-student-run-down, not eating-out-of-the-gutter bad. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there. I’m…enormously prodigal.”
This is…pretty good. I like how dirty his feet are, and whatever he’s wearing definitely qualifies as rags. The little sad dog adds a nice touch! I’m a bit conservative inasmuch as I think the only people you need in a Prodigal Son tableaux are Son (Prodigal), Father (Forgiving) and Son (Goatless). Everyone else just muddles the scene! Like, who of all these dudes crowding into the right-hand corner is the resentful brother? And who’s the resentful chick? Why is someone bringing in a bowl full of laundry? That’s way more clothes than the one son needs. There are like five tunics in there! There’s too much going on here!
Disqualified. You are five. What did you spend all your inheritance on? Being five?? GET OUT OF HERE. YOU ARE FIVE.
This is just…putting a shirt on him. It looks like he has two very serious butlers!
WHY IS THERE A MOTHER HERE? WHY IS HER FACE LIKE THAT? “My son! I am BEGRUDGINGLY going to hug you??” And there’s some very excited, I guess, seamstress in the background? Whichever form of weaving you have a spindle at, I don’t know. Knittlework.
A++++ LOOK AT THE ANGRY BROTHER IN THE FAR RIGHT HAND CORNER. “DAMN THAT CHARMING BROTHER OF MINE! HE BATHES HIS FEET IN COPPER WHILE I HAVE NOT EVEN A SINGLE GOAT TO MY NAME!”
…Why is he a mummy? Why is the Prodigal Son returning to his father from the grave?
he looks AWFULLY STURDY for someone too weak and hungry to stand, but the three-day stubble definitely lets me know he has recently clutched a sink and stared into the mirror while thinking “What have I BECOME,” also the dog is like, “What have you BECOME,” but also “I smell the real you underneath it all!!!”
[Images via]
I don’t think it gets any prodigaller than returning as mummy from the grave.
That’s my favourite one thanks to all the people peeking out of their doorways. “Honey, quick! There’s prodigalary happening in the street RIGHT NOW!”
“Profligate prodigalary promulgating pitifully! DEAD AHEAD!”
But wrapping rags around your legs in lieu of pants was a sign of real poverty. I know this, because my favorite folk tale, Rags and Tatters, makes a point of it. It’s a good story — even Mallory couldn’t make it horrific!
That’s actually the closest to the real event, setting-wise. The father and son are dressed eastern-style and meeting in the Jerusalem old city. (Kudos to the painter, you can almost identify the exact alley).
But it does lose points for no brothers, goats, or possibility of goats (where do you get a goat in the heart of the city ? maybe this is why the older son never got one ? ) and for putting the meeting outside in the street instead of in the father’s house.
No, that’s correct–the father saw him from far off and ran to meet him, so it should be an outside meeting. Should also be rural, though. How would you see someone from far off in those twisty alleys?
Needs more goats, definitely.
Putting a Shirt on Prodigal definitely looks like he was painted from a cadaver because that is a worrying skin tone for an alive person. If there was an Actually Dread bracket for this Prodigal-off I think they’d both be strong contenders.
“Springfield Springfield, it’s a hell of a town…” Now stuck in my head for the rest of the day THANKS MALLORY.
♪the schoolyard’s up and the shopping mall’s down♪
The stray dogs go to the animal pound!
All of these sons have very clean loincloths. It makes me suspect that the whole poor me, I’ve been fighting pigs for corncobs shtick is greatly exaggerated.
“C’mon dad — I’ve got, like, five smudges of dirt on my loincloth. I’m totally broke.”
::assumes faux-hunched pose::
There are a number of biblical commentaries that would agree with you. He practices his please forgive poor little me speech on the way home.
That’s what my priest pointed out in her sermon on this a couple of weeks ago. He never actually expresses regret or contrition, merely states the fact of his sin, in exactly the words he practiced, and asks for as much as he thinks he can get out of his father.
I will say, as a good person I have always hated the Prodigal Son parable. Yes, I want God to forgive me of my sins, but let’s not just have a free for all here! He doesn’t do anything to show he is sorry! Just partied away a fortune like a jackass while the other son has spent a life time working and being good, honest and decent gets more work on the farm. Awesome!!!
Also the “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?”
REALLY!!! I hope the other 99 sheep go off to a decent shepherd and have a nice life while you starve to death after eating your one precious lost sheep. Because one sheep can’t have babies moron, so you’re DONE, SON!!!
Well, and also the 99 sheep would then wander off in the absence of a minder and get themselves eaten/fall off a cliff/drown in a shallow puddle. You have to get into the spirit of the metaphor, or it doesn’t work. As in many philosophical thought experiments, we’re assuming that the sheep are static objects here, and that you can safely leave the 99 for a bit while you go sort out the one that hasn’t got its shit together.
Wait, I thought goats ?
I always had trouble accepting the idea that he didn’t KNOW his father would take him back. Did he actually think his father would just hire him as a servant? If his father was that shitty, why go home at all? Clearly he knew the old man was good for at least a calf.
And a fatted one at that.
They may have lost everything that matters in this cruel world, but they still know to keep a dickribbon clean. #priorities
“I’m really, really, really sorry.”
-“I’m afraid sorry doesn’t cut it with this Pope!”
/simpsons
Mallory, I don’t ask for much. But I would really, really, really love to hear what Ayn Rand thinks about this bullshit prodigal son business.
A young man demanded his inheritance from his father. His father kicked him out of his house.
THE END
“And don’t come back until you run a train conglomerate!”
I like the idea of the 1890s one, if not the execution! I am all for putting Ye Olde stories in modern settings.
I rather think he’s been Sent Down from University, ostensibly for Having Debts but also for an Overly Close Friendship with the Titled, Dissolute Lad down the hall.
“I revisited Brideshead once too often if you know what I mean”
He neglected to omit the reference to the unspeakable vice of the Greeks.
He just kept going through that low door in the wall to the enchanted garden. So enchanted! Definitely not a butt.
There were fairies in the garden of his bottom.
The wines were too various, and too mixed.
But is that a deformed Mr. Peanut in the crack of the doorway? There are questions here that I need answered.
Whoa that strangely 1890s one has some fun details, praying mom! Silver service! Chair twisted like barqoue church columns! You know, in case we didn’t get that this was a RELIGIOUS painting.
I want to know why there are tiny paintings underneath each of the big paintings. Was this common in the 1890’s?
They’re probably prints, that big one is most likely a mezzotint or large-scale etching of a history painting or equestrian portrait of nobility? And the little one is probably an etching of a View or a group of people.
And they’re down low because they’re tiny and you have to get close to see them, whereas you can gaze up at the big ones well enough.
I went to a salon-style gallery yesterday and one of the gallery guides said, “This hanging style was 19th century pinterest”
THERE’S A MADONNA AND CHILD ON THE TABLECLOTH THERE’S A MADONNA AND CHILD ON THE TABLECLOTH IT’S LIKE A REFERENCE
oh wait damn it’s a vase of flowers
I tried
#6 spent all of his allowance at the candy store, but his Dad is still going buy him a new game, even though his brother saved up *his* allowance money for the game. Clearly painted with Sunday school lessons in mind.
and then next year, everyone is getting socks and underwear
…
presuming we’re working off the same recent Dear Prudence question, here.
50% that letter, 50% actual Sunday school lessons on this story
oh yeah, now just get a flannelgraph involved somehow…
knittlework
knittlework
i know you’re doing it on purpose, probably like card weaving in your spare time and then being like ‘hahahaha i’m such a fiber arts troll these people think i don’t know a spindle from a distaff’
being an expert fair isle knitter
‘hehehe now i’m gonna say you crochet with needles’
owning an entire working jacquard loom
‘felting is the one with the spinny round thing right’
New life goal: become a professional fiber arts troll.
mallory’s beaten you to it by a year (at least) (yes i keep track): http://the-toast.net/2015/02/04/turns-no-idea-bre…
It could be a spindle, which, yes, people still use to spin yarn. No weaving here.
I had to do a ctrl+f to make sure I hadn’t been beaten to the punch on BUT MALLORY THAT’S A DISTAFF. The punch, I am beaten to it.
Also why is that child just hanging out carrying a badly-loaded distaff?
“2/10, would not redeem” Eh, I’m siding with the goat-brother on this one.
Definitely thought prodigal meant, like, “wandery” or “has been away for a long time” or something for my whole life. I am now vaguely insulted that my grandmother called me the prodigal son all those times I returned home from college…
I always thought it was related to “prodigy” (and also didn’t know the story of the prodigal son so had no context to infer it wasn’t a good thing to be), but apparently they’re entirely unrelated words. And prodigal is a backformation of prodigality, which is a word I didn’t even know existed.
Yes! I too thought it was related to prodigy, and had to do with the son going out and achieving great things then returning home.
I feel like whenever I hear is used in current media I haven’t gotten a negative context from it really (except for perhaps sarcasm).
Same! I never knew the prodigal son was such a rapscallion, totally thought it was “kid who finally comes home” as well. Mind. Blown.
(I also think it’s quite possible that your grandma had the same wrong definition as us.)
Maybe but I wouldn’t put it past her to know about and revel in the more scandalous meaning, ha
tbf your grandmother probably thought it meant “wandery” too.
Yeah, that’s my thought. My dad fully knows the story yet whenever I visit my parents (every other weekend or so, I live 1.5 hours away) he’s like “the prodigal child has returned!” jokingly. :/
Actual prodigal definition: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/prodigal?s=t (sorry I don’t know how to do links)
Prodigal has come to mean “ungrateful child who runs away and lives in sin probably” due to this story. I’ve been to like 50 sermons where the pastor’s like “ACTUALLY it was the FATHER who was prodigal: with his forgiveness!!” *looks at congregation complacently*
Wut
But it’s called the prodigal SON. Ugh, pastors.
The father is someone’s son, too!
In the vast majority of these, I feel like being “prodigal” is just a metaphor for coming home with a hangover. Especially the ones where he looks twelve.
“DAD I HAD A SIP OF BEER I AM SO SORRY”
The inexplicably 1890s one definitely looks like he has just come home from a weekend long bender in the same clothes he went out in on Friday and is awkwardly trying to pretend he just woke up and got dressed and by the way mother, father, the fees at my club have gone up horribly you couldn’t see your way to forwarding me a small sum? Only it’s the only place I can study in quiet, yes yes medicine suits me very well, yes the professors are very impressed with my work. Ahem.
I’m pretty sure the five-year-old is actually Frodo.
I came here to say that is CLEARLY concept art for the Lord of the Rings.
Or the kid from ET. Could go either way on this one.
Frodo threw the most valuable part of his inheritance into a volcano. That’s maximally prodigal.
Def hobbit. I thought it was Merry.
The crocodile tears one is Bilbo.
Knittlework.
Okay, so, this is embarrassing: up until recently (like, very recently… like maybe up until reading the headline of the article and making a quick, puzzled detour to google), I thought “prodigal” was an adjective describing someone who left home and then came back. I didn’t think it meant anything different because honestly, when does anyone, ever, use the word “prodigal” in reference to anything except this story?
Actually, most people make this assumption. I would even venture to say that it has become a colloquially acceptable definition because of its sheer commonness. Of course, this is not to say that it isn’t horrendous, nor to say that you shouldn’t feel terrible about yourself.
Sort of like how “good Samaritan” has come to mean “stranger who does a nice thing,” when the closer analogy is more like a Bostonian talking about the “pretty cool Yankees fan.” Judeans did NOT like Samaritans.
Thank you. I almost felt ok for making the same mistake, but then I course-corrected.
You are not alone…
Number 4 is *ever* so prodigal.
Also, for number 7…. They’re not butlers they’re valets!
(I’ll show myself out, which I’d have to do anyway, as we have no butlers.)
Or prodigal gentleman’s gentlemen, as ’twere.
Right behind you on the way out myself 😉
*cough* I’d certainly welcome that last prodigal. I mean, I’m just saying, believable sinning-potential going on there. 10/10, would sin with.
(I love how Serkis-esque-second-prodigal is just *letting himself in*, like “hey, don’t mind me, just was out back doing chores for….a few years. No, I always looked like a dirty hobbit. CARRY ON.” )
HIS WEIRD SHEEPISH WAVE. I love it so much. “Heyyyy, dudes…”
As I was scrolling down and #2 revealed itself, I was thinking, “Wait, the Prodigal Son turned into a literal satyr due to his prodigalosity?”
The stoner paranoia in #2’s eyes … “You guys don’t think I look weird, do you? I mean, this outfit is totally cool, right? Cuz I’m not fucked up at all here.”
I was going to say that he looks like Kevin McDonald.
Dude, if the 5-year-olds I know actually carried money and knew how to pay for stuff, they would be super prodigal.
Not just candy, either. Pizza. Ice cream. Stuffed animals. Action figures. Oh my god, can you imagine how much they’d rack up in in-app purchases???
Disqualified 5-year-old took his inheritance to the Disney store and spent about an hour there. Now he has no money and is HUNGRYYYYY. (Only for Cheez-Its though, not hungry for healthy food.)
I learned the hard way to turn off one-click ordering from Amazon the hard way, when my kid was three.
Hidden perils of touch screens–one of these days, my cats are going to order something through One-Click. It’s just a matter of time.
brb, turning it off right now.
The 5 year old’s father is Santa.
Maybe he’s an elf.
A prodigelf.
Also the 1890s Prodigal has come home to his father literally Hat In Hand. Unfortunate that there is no Goatless Brother here.
Behind the door! Look, quick, before he runs off and takes one of the goats.
I feel you, Goatless Brother, I feel you. It’s not fair!
#teamgoatless
Goatless Brother is the David Fisher of the family for sure.
Slactivist has pointed out that the prodigal son’s adventures in Foreign Parts had two stages: a) squandering, b) famine (and economic collapse), such that he couldn’t even find decent work in Foreign. it’s not just this parable that gets distorted and deformed by our selective white American perspective. Wherever it is we’re looking, when we see people in desperate need, we always overemphasize the squandering and we always ignore the famine.
YES thank you for pointing this out!
It’s so fascinating to me that 100% of Americans remember that the son was financially wasteful and only 6% remember that he was also the victim of famine. It says a lot about Western civilization and the attitude that people who fall on hard times must be completely responsible for their predicament.
(Full disclosure: I did not remember the famine either until I read about this study. It made me rethink pretty much every parable I’ve ever heard.)
I was totally going to link to this! Thanks for doing commenting so I don’t have to.
BUT he wouldn’t have been there suffering famine if he hadn’t been too impatient for his dad to die and took the money and ditched the family and squandered the money. That wasn’t true of all the other famine sufferers, but it was true of him.
When I read the parable, it doesn’t sound like the father even knows what the son’s been up to when he embraces/forgives him:
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”
So as far as the father (or the other son) knows, there’s been only squandering, not famine, yet he still embraces him. All he cares about is that the son is back safe and sound.
Clark writes, “We read this story and glide right past that vital detail without it ever registering.” That vital detail being the famine. And yet there’s no mention of this vital detail other than background before the son returns. It’s not mentioned by anyone, not the father, not the other son. There is mention of the squandering, though: ” But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’”
It’s the parable that overemphasizes the squandering and ignores the famine.
And pointing out that the prodigal son squandered his inheritance is not saying that everyone “facing destitution and/or calamity… must, somehow, deserve their poverty and deprivation.”
And pointing out that the prodigal son squandered his inheritance is not saying that everyone “facing destitution and/or calamity… must, somehow, deserve their poverty and deprivation.”
Thank you, Bent_fork. It always makes me uncomfortable when people make these types of hasty generalizations *on behalf of others*… and then get offended by it.
Ok, I’ve been thinking about this some more, and I think the Slacktivist article has it backwards over who is being all judge-y and trying to make a case over the poor being “deserving”. If the famine is a vital detail, then its removal from the story would change it. Without the famine, we just have a son that blew his inheritance, and a message of a father’s unconditional love in taking him back, even though the son’s predicament was wholly of his own doing. The father’s love isn’t dependent on whether the son is deserving or at fault for his situation.
But when we add in the famine, we are introducing a discussion about whether or not the son’s predicament was wholly of his own doing. He doesn’t deserve all of what happened to him because there was a famine. The famine muddies the waters, because now the story is not about unconditional love. The reason the father is welcoming the son back has nothing to do with whether the son is the author of his own misfortune. If we are to support the prodigal son because there was a famine, does that mean that absent the famine, the father should not have welcomed the son back?
In addition to causing huge amounts of familial distress and centuries of questionable artwork, the prodigal son was also singlehandedly responsible for one of the largest vocabulary misunderstandings OF ALL TIME. Thanks, dude. It’s your fault that everyone thinks “prodigal” means “coming back after a long absence” now.
I just had to look it up myself, because I have only ever heard it used by people making a “prodigal son” reference. So when one’s father jokingly says that the prodigal son has returned when you come over, it never means, “My wastefully extravagant son is here!” Just, “Hey, the kid I haven’t seen in a few weeks just turned up.”
How do you even use that word in other contexts now?
He’s notoriously prodigal once he comes into some money.
Nah, dude, you can’t count on him to have his share of the rent on time; he’s super prodigal.
They spent money prodigally all weekend at the best bars in town.
Yeah, the “notoriously prodigal” one is what I hear most often I think. I feel like we’re at the point where the “showing up again” definition should just be made official since it’s so common.
well, if that’s what people are using it to mean, and that’s what people understand it to mean, then that is what it means. ‘official’ doesn’t really mean much when it comes to language.
Long ago and in another city,though,my parish priest used to refer,habitually to God as “prodigal,” in the sense of just recklessly and utterly without concern giving away a whole universe of love,and it was always a shock to hear that word applied to God,and I loved it.
My husband posits that the “5 year old” Prodigal is, in fact, Elijah Wood and not 5 at all
I was just going to post that he looked like Frodo!
I’m pretty sure it’s actually a still from 1996’s Flipper.
Mallory, this is my favorite one yet. Cackling at my desk. Fired.
In this economy, you’re going to have trouble finding a new job feeding corncobs to pigs.
I can always go home
My ex had a version of the prodigal son returning and we hung it up everywhere we lived, and I’d NEVER heard the story, and he said it was relevant to his life. But that makes NO sense, unless HE was the prodigal son and was being a total shit… so was that a moment of self-reflection? Now I’m so confused! Why oh why didn’t I have a religious upbringing so I could be like “What? That makes no sense! Your family doesn’t even HAVE any money for you to squander.” I think he just thought of himself as “prodigal” and he was a son. Now I’m angry.
Man, I really want to know his reasoning now…
MAYBE HE IS THE GOATLESS ONE THOUGH.
As the “good brother” (I’m a lady, but you know–metaphorically) for my entire life this story has always made me super super pissed. Like, dude, you squandered a full half of our family’s wealth and now you want to come home with no marketable skill and dad’s going to use up the other half throwing you lavish parties?! I know it’s supposed to be a parable about how God is forgiving and no matter what we do He’ll always love us, but honestly it makes God sound like a super unfair idiot to me.
God’s such an…. *enabler*
Yeah I mean it would feel different if it were just the forgiveness (see: point someone else made upthread about the famine) but the part about the lavish party makes it like–his father cared more about him and treated him better BECAUSE he spent that time acting shitty?! It’s like a parable about how if you’re good all the time you’ll just be taken for granted, and screw you for resenting that.
Though, to be fair, the father does tell the goatless son that everything else he owns is his, so not really that stingy in the big picture…
Dad split the inheritance before Prodigal Son left. Isn’t “everything else” already Goatless Son’s half of the inheritance? So the fattened calf and food and drink and jewelry and clothes and whatnot? That’s all stuff that Dad said belonged to Goatless Son, that he took without asking the person he claims is the owner. If I was Goatless Son, I’d be a little skeptical of that “everything else I own is yours.”
Yeah, I saw an animated kids’ movie of the prodigal son once, and when the goatless brother was saying, “I’ve worked so hard for you, and you never threw me any parties!” the dad just really gently says, “Son. You can have a party any time you want.” And the son is like, “What, I can???” Like it’s just now hitting him that he could have had a party any time all along and all he had to do was ask and the dad would have been just as happy to share with him. Which isn’t explicitly stated in the actual parable, but I think it gets the point across better: The parable is trying to say that God’s love is freely offered to those who want it, not something that you have to work years and years to finally earn. The “goatless” son already HAD all the good stuff. The dad wasn’t holding out on him. He just completely didn’t understand that if he wanted a goat, all he had to do was ask.
I did 16 years of Catholic education–I’ve definitely seen that exact prodigal son video (I’m sure there was only one and it was almost certainly produced by the same people that made Davey and Goliath) and also the Biblical story itself makes the whole “all you had to do was ask” bit clear as well.
My problem–and again maybe this is personal since I’m coming from a family where I was the good, responsible stay-at-home and work hard kid–is that the brother shouldn’t *have* to ask. For one thing when his idiot brother returns home dad immediately runs out and is like–here take these nice clothes, here let’s have a big big party and spend lots of money to celebrate YOU. First, it’s not like idiot brother is out living the life and just suddenly realizes how selfish he’s being–he squanders a full half of everything his family has and only then decides, hmm…it’d probably be good if I go home now; after all dad treats his servants better than the guy I currently work for so I’ll just exploit our connection for better treatment despite having no marketable skills. Second, as someone else pointed out, by lavishing all this stuff on idiot brother when he comes back, dad is actively taking stuff away from the good brother. Idiot brother already got his share and he went out and had a ton of fun and threw it all away while presumably dad and good brother are stuck at home working even harder to make up for everything they lost when idiot brother took half their stuff and beat it. Can you imagine being the good brother in that family and spending your whole life working really hard for just the tiniest bit of praise or recognition from your dad and receiving nada; meanwhile your idiot brother blows a ton of money and comes lounging back in and your dad is all “fire up the bbq, the son I actually care about is back so we can have a party again”.
It’s also really shitty to hear “all you had to do was ask” when up until that point it’s been made subtly (or explicitly) clear that not asking is what makes you “good” in the first place.
This so much. One of my sisters carries a lot of resentment because she was the good girl* and stayed home while going to university. This was difficult because the relationship with our parents was … fraught. The rest of us left pretty much right after graduating high school. I paid my own way through school (not a feat in early 80s Canada) because I did not want to be beholden to them, but my parents paid the whole freight for my youngest sister to attend school in another city. Including her share of the rent on the apartment she shared, regrettably, with good-girl sister, and regular gifts of cash to buy clothes or whatever.
When good-girl sister voiced her resentment, my parents said they would have paid for all of our educations, no matter where we decided to go. If my sister had known that, she definitely would have picked anywhere but home city. Things would have been much more pleasant for everybody.
*She tried to be the good girl, but is not actually considered such by my mother or aunts. They all just took her desire to please others as a green light to demand more and expect her to live her life how they wanted her to. And my sister’s very legitimate resentment at the unfairness of it all, that she wasn’t rewarded for her efforts, has made her into a frequently not-so-nice girl to be around. And we all know that to be a good girl, one first has to be a nice girl.
Trying the reply-by-email thing intensedebate apparently allows, wish me luck that this ends up where it’s supposed to and the formatting doesn’t get fucked up!
Yeah it sounds like she had reason to think that even broaching the subject would be at best fraught and pointless, and at worst might upset the balance and make things worse (what if they said they wouldn’t pay for her tuition at all? Or made it explicit that they’d only pay if she stayed home). There’s this idea that “just asking” is, of COURSE, easy and free of any costs and utterly without risk.
The other side of it is that it’s easy for them to say that, now, long after the opportunity for actually demonstrating it has passed. Like, I don’t know them and I can’t really say whether or not it’s a lie and they would not in fact have paid for your sister to go to school wherever without a fight, but it’s a claim that 1)is completely unfalsifiable, since nobody can peer into an alternate universe where everything else is the same but your sister asked, 2)costs them nothing to say, since she already went to school while staying home, and yet 3)is supposed to make them look generous and her unreasonable.
It reminds me of that bit from The Daughter of Time where the Marta actress character says something like “I’m sure Joseph* was an insufferable brat, and overdue to be dumped in that pit.”
*of the technicolor dreamcoat
I also still don’t understand why God had to be such a dick to Cain about his vegetables, either. 🙁
I don’t know if it’s because I’m super literal-minded, but the ire against the good brother never made sense to me either. He’s right to be mad! I mean, we’re never told if he actually ever asked his dad for a goat, but obviously it’s about more than the goat.
I always identify with the worker who buried his talent in the ground in order to not lose it, too. :/
Before I googled that, it sounded a lot more myth-y because I was thinking of skill-talent, not type-of-currency-talent.
But yeah, money. I actually think that was incredibly dubious of the other two servants who… I guess invested the money? I mean I guess it worked out but it didn’t really look like they had permission to spend it in any way, just to look after it.
Haha yeah, I think it was like straight-up silver pieces. I’d be afraid of it getting lost or stolen too!
Yeah the talent story is a little weird. It would have made more sense if the master had explicitly said when giving them the money, “Hey see if you can do something useful with this, okay?” But since he doesn’t, the reactions in the story only sort of make sense. Maybe it made more sense in the culture at the time? I don’t know.
I always found it confusing because “sell stuff for profit” was definitely not a value I grew up with.
That one and the workers in the vineyard who started work in the morning but got paid the same amount as the ones who weren’t hired until the evening. (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+20)
I mean, like, I get it from a theological standpoint. But also, you’ve basically now just guaranteed that any future workers will not be showing up until 7pm. See also deathbed confessions of faith.
Basically I’ve decided it’s just easier to believe that everyone goes to heaven, there’s nothing you can do about it one way or the other, so just try to be a good person and worry less about what everyone else is doing.
TEAM GOATLESS. I always felt so bad for him. But also, how bad is that family’s communication skills? Dad’s all like “you could’ve had a goat whenever” but clearly that is not the case because son felt like he had to ask. I call emotional chain yanking.
I just want to see the brothers the morning after the party and Big Brother’s like kicking Little Brother out of bed at the crack of dawn with a hangover “c’mon get to work, you wanted to be part of this family again, well, guess what, IN THIS FAMILY WE WORK.”
And little brother’s standing there bewildered at the fancy new milking machine they got while he was gone, like, “wait, how does – ?” and big brother’s like, “figure it out, I got a back forty to plow, bucko” and little brother’s going, “are there any pigs? any corncobs? Cuz . . . cuz I can DO that . . .”
My grasp of Biblical-era technology is . . . not strong.
Whoo, yeah, that was me as a kid. How do you know you can ask for stuff if you’re never told?
This whole thread has been better than therapy. Fellow goatless brothers unite!
I will defend the Murillo one (#5) to the death. OK, A of all, the angry brother is clearly the one picking up the ring off the plate of clothes that the servant is bringing in, like “A motherfucking RING? Are you shitting me? He never gave me and my friends so much as a single strand of pearls” and the servant is like, “Um, I just work here, dude.” And second of B, the extraneous people are fantastic, like, you’ve got the kid on the left who has clearly named the fatted calf Wilbur and has absolutely no idea what’s about to happen to it, and then you’ve got the lady on the right who’s shooting her kid this look like “now don’t YOU get any ideas if you decide to go all prodigal on me and your father, young man.” Murillo is just the best, did you ever read I, Juan de Pareja?
I love that A of all and second of B have taken off so much.
ohhh that guy!! I LOVED I, Juan de Pareja.
I was thinking the same thing about the Wilbur kid! Poor boy, he doesn’t know where he’s leading that calf. I think the lady on the right is looking at him, wondering if she should intervene.
Also I love laundry bowl guy’s sort of socks and sandals.
I LOVE that book, but it’s about Velazquez, not Murillo, right?
Velazquez is Juan’s master, but Murillo is also in it. He’s the one who starts secretly teaching Juan to paint while Juan is freaking out all “but what if Master finds out, he’ll flip the hell out” and Murillo’s like “Nonsense, my friend, to waste a talent like yours is a sin against the Holy Virgin” and then Velazquez does find out and Juan’s so scared and Velazquez is just like “Holy crap, Juanico, I need to free you like yesterday” and oh the feels.
I might have read that book one hundred million times as a kid.
Velazquez is Juan’s master, but Murillo is also in it. He’s the one who starts secretly teaching Juan to paint while Juan is freaking out all “but what if Master finds out, he’ll flip the hell out” and Murillo’s like “Nonsense, my friend, to waste a talent like yours is a sin against the Holy Virgin” and then Velazquez does find out and Juan’s so scared and Velazquez is just like “Holy crap, Juanico, I need to free you like yesterday” and oh the feels.
I might have read that book one hundred million times as a kid.
Henceforth my default argument-ending response to Internet trolls: “GET OUT OF HERE. YOU ARE FIVE.”
This actually would work really well IRL too.
Great as always.
Kind of serious question: I was raised in a regular Protestant (United Methodist) family, so had lots of exposure to this story. It always just really pissed me off, because I was #teamgoatless. Does anyone have a relationship with this story that DOESN’T involve being pissed off on the older brother’s behalf? I mean, I think it’s supposed to be about the capacity for forgiveness or something, but….yo, not a single goat to my name.
I always think of it like what if you, as a parent, had a kid who was an addict and you didn’t know where they were or what they were doing, and they came to you and wanted to go to rehab, and then they stayed clean? You would be OVERJOYED. If you had a kid who you thought was dead but then it turned out they weren’t, you would throw the biggest fucking welcome back party ever. I look at this story differently as a parent than I did as a child (especially as the goody two shoes child, which I totally was).
Yeah, this story resonated way more the most recent time I heard it, since my neighbor’s teenager is fucking up in some serious ways (the drugs/crime/recklessness ways). In her sermon, my priest asked us to think about how the father must have felt all those years, not knowing if his son was alive or dead, and how overjoyed he must have been to see him again. I cried.
For a long time I was the same, until I heard a terrific homily about how we are all the prodigal sons–we fuck up and turn our faces and hearts away from God in so many ways, but God’s infinite capacity for love and welcome is there anyway, no matter how badly we screw up or far from home we go.
That’s the only way I can honestly think about this story without intense bitterness…but then, I’m an oldest child with a pathological sense of responsibility, and Goatless here taps into an inner dread that has taken up permanent residence somewhere in my gut.
Maybe Goatless feels like a fuckup, too, and is bitter because he’s been able to keep his shit together, but only just, for a very long time and it’s so hard.
Yeah, and I mean, I’m totally reading things into the story (but you kind of almost have to with parables), but I think Goatless Son had maybe put a ton of pressure on himself that Dad never really expected of him. Like he just felt this constant weight of “I have to be The Good Child. I have to take care of the home. Stupid brother left, and now there is only me to be responsible and hold it all together.” So when Dad basically tells him, “Um, you know, you can have parties too. It’s really okay,” I think he really didn’t understand that he didn’t have to be perfect to get “the reward.” The dad already wanted to share everything with him. He just also wanted to share with his other child too. And that was okay.
This is a beautiful interpretation!
Oh man, I’ve never heard that interpretation. I really needed that. Thank you.
I think the story is good to the goatless son too, because he gets taught that love is unconditional. I think some Goatless Toasties are still feeling that there are conditions, but DIFFERENT conditions from what they thought? Like, “I thought the condition was goodness but now I see that it’s actually having suffered a lot, OH MY GOD I bet on the wrong horse and nobody will ever love me again because I didn’t go on crazy adventures and hurt myself”? While the point is actually that both sons are good and everyone is loved and no one has to struggle to be accepted.
I love this, thank you! Yes, I think Goatless is feeling like the goalposts just moved at the last minute, like, “Dammit, I’ve been trying all my life to please you and it turns out that was useless all along, thanks a lot, Dad, now I’ve got nothing,” and Dad gently reminding him that no, I’ve loved you all along and would have no matter what, so you have everything.
For team Goatless over here – it’s kind of more like – well, I would have done a lot more stuff that *I* wanted to do if I had realized that you would have loved me anyway. Of course, the useful thing about this as a parable about God’s love is that 1) God’s love is not a zero-sum game, unlike a parent’s money and 2) If you hear this early enough, then yes, go do your thing, enjoy your life, don’t worry about being perfect or “earning” God’s love, because you can’t. It’s just there regardless.
Yeah, I always learned that as the point, but it bothers my inner editor because the point is that God’s love is supposed to be infinite, whereas there are a finite number of goats to be had.
I think this story runs into some differences between the contemporary Western worldview and the bronze age world that these people lived in. To you and me, goats are finite. But to them, fortune came from God. They only have one goat NOW, but God has an infinite supply of goats that he could send whenever he wants. We (raised in capitalism) plan forward, they saw what was there but also thought that God can take or add goats as he sees fit.
Not Bronze Age or even Iron Age – Christ lived under the Roman Empire. /thatalwaysnigglesmepedant
I thought the Roman Empire counted as bronze age because they relied on bronze stuff. Is that wrong? My part of the world was still in the bronze age by year 0…
And it’s also a lesson to goatless brother of “Come on, can’t you be happy about the return of your brother too? Didn’t you care?” Him wanting a goat for himself and his friends is a little bit similar to prodigal guy wanting his inheritance right now, instead of either of them wanting to celebrate with dear old dad and family and all, where they ALL get to eat the same calf or goat together.
In her sermon on it two weeks ago, my priest talked about how carefully the son prepares his “I’m a huge fuckup, but please let me take care of the sheep or something” speech, but then doesn’t actually get to go through any of his rehearsed pleas for mercy, because his father loves and embraces him before he has a chance. She talked about how much energy we all put into justifying ourselves to God, and how little any of our effort matters, because Grace is there before we even have a chance to confess our sins and beg for scraps of mercy.
Also raised Methodist, also Team Goatless. I’m not saying we should have left Mr. I Wish You Were Dead, Dad out in the snow to DIE, I’m just saying I would have accepted his offer to be a servant for a few years to pay back his sheer asshattery before I killed so much as a chicken for him. Sons gotta learn CONSEQUENCES.
The explanation I heard that finally made sense to me / left me able to feel less resentful on goatless bro’s behalf was, like— Yes, the father does forgive his son and take him back in, but what he expressly does NOT do is promise him a replacement inheritance. Absolutely everything the father still has will be going to Goatless when he dies (this is what the father means when he says “All that is mine is yours”). So in that context, it makes sense for Goatless to chill, as he’ll still ultimately benefit from his better behavior.
But yeah, I don’t know. It was always one I struggled with, and it’s just as likely the more difficult/resentment-inspiring interpretation is the intended meaning; cf. the parable of the vineyard workers, where they all get paid the same. Like, I get it—I GET it!—but… but I worked all day long, and it was really hard!! (And plus in that case my dude should have paid the earlier workers first for morale reasons, but on the other hand, then they would have just been satisfied and left and there would be no parable.)
My thoughts about that parable exactly!! Like, is paying them by the hour not a thing? And same about paying the earlier workers first.
One question my Dad (who is a pastor) posed made me think of this differently: Did the goatless son ever actually ask for a goat? I mean, we don’t know the answer (and this is a parable, so not real life anyway), but I know people who don’t ask for goats and then get ticked off that they don’t have one, so
Yeah, that’s another good point that I’ve heard discussed (and that would make it better, if it were the case, which it isn’t, even hypothetically, because it’s a parable). It’s true that the father was never so singularly overjoyed by Goatless that he threw him a huge party, but it’s certainly possible that he WOULD have at any time at all if he had known it was important to him. I mean, we are talking about a guy who immediately liquidated half his assets and handed them over to his disaster of a younger son just because he was rudely asked to do so.
And it’s also possible that getting a huge party/a goat for a casual shindig WASN’T really that important to Goatless, or at any rate that it didn’t occur to him he’d have liked one until he saw the big fuss being made over Prodigal. If he’s really having the same feelings I was back when I was heavily identifying with him, it’s not that he has any particular problem with the way his father treats him—it’s just that he feels, given how much better a son he is, OBJECTIVELY, his father ought to be overtly favoring him.
Goatless didn’t have a huge party, but then, he also didn’t have a period of living in total squalor and desperation and shame. He budgeted his financial and emotional resources more wisely and kept a more even keel as a result.
Yeah, I think that’s what this story is really getting at – people who feel that they deserve love/acceptance because they are so good, and who feel that love/acceptance should be withheld from people who aren’t good to punish them. We learn that 1) love isn’t a reward, like wages for work, 2) to not be so damn self-righteous and snobby, 3) to put away our insecurities and just love each other unconditionally (this probably feels good for goatless son too!). Everyone needs a home. #teamprodigal
Thank you for all your comments on this. I was way too busy to put thoughts about parables in order yesterday, so all I could do was read these comments and get increasingly agitated that nobody was pointing out the importance of infinite forgiveness and love.
I read it as much as the squeaky gate getting the most oil – it doesn’t do much good to be the dutiful child, because you will get taken for granted. The “oh you could have had a party anytime ” line doesn’t work for me, because did the father bother to tell his son that upfront, or show his love and appreciation? Does a kid have to ask for those things? (This is a totally anachronistic modern viewpoint I’m using here, I know.)
Good thing Goatless wasn’t a woman. No goats for you, daughter, and how dare you expect anything for being an unpaid servant, would have been her lot.
Not to mention that poor calf. It was just being fat and living its best life and this yahoo comes home from blowing all his money and the dad’s all “guess what, calf?”
I think it is actually offensive to a lot of people that God would love everyone equally, whether they were “the good kid” or “worked all day in the vineyards” or “squandered the money on prostitutes” or “totally fucked up” or what. God says explicitly that she loves our enemies, that our enemies are her children and deserve mercy and forgiveness as much as we do. Needle scratch. Trump does? Rapists do? Forget the prodigal son, that’s some radical shit. God is far more forgiving and loving than I am and it’s very hard to get used to. Especially if I like thinking of myself as a good person. Important to remember that this story is a parable, not a real family dynamic you could somehow suss out. It’s supposed to be about something infinite and eternal.
I had a terrible grasp of piecemeal theology from going to free christian daycare and being raised by hippies.
I thought, at 7, that this was a stupid story because the moral was “go out and party, your parents will forgive you anyway.” Which I knew was only kind of true. That kind got some barbecue, but his parents are going to keep bringing this up forever.
I swear I thought the He Sold His Toes to Eat Son was actually a fawn? Like, hello, Mr. Tumnus, what are you doing here? Why do you expect us to kill the fatted calf, isn’t that some sort of cousin of yours?
He IS a faun! That’s the hidden undercurrent of the parable: the fatted calf is slain to serve as an *example.* Don’t step out of line again, kid. This is what happens. This could have been yooouuu.
Every prodigal son deserves, if not perhaps a fatted calf, a small dog who loses his mind when he comes home. I’m glad to see that most of these pictures recognize that.
Prodigal Son/Odyssey mashup ftw.
ARGOS
*single tear*
Isn’t it Athos?
Nope, it’s Argos.
WOW, I have a friend whose handle was Athos based on this reunion so that lodged in my brain (otherwise I would have checked before saying anything!)
No big deal–but speaking of having things lodged in the brain, pedantry about matters Homeric is kind of what I did my dissertation on!
It was…quite an experience.
OMG write more about this for publication I will read the crap out of it.
Oh man, the teenaged neighbor *does* have a small dog that loves him and is happy to see him. Holy crap, so many parallels.
Two Very Serious Butlers will be my next band name if I can find someone else to dress up in butler drag with.
I like the person eavesdropping at the door in #4. “Ooh, I can’t WAIT to tell this story at the pub. They’ll never believe it!”
So many so many (dear gahd) hours of bible study on this with roomfulls of #notasinglegoatboy. I think we have morphed this into the typical dysfunctional family paradigm with a Golden Child and a Scapegoat where it sort of falls apart. And we each assign ourselves a character, defend it, and wish we were the other.
Scapegoatless.
That five year old has some bizarrely outsize hands.
I mean, when you consider that the goatless brother would have also received a giant party upon his return, it’s his own fault for not putting himself out there.
I HATE this parable. It goes against everything I believe in about justice and karma and fairness and rightness in life. Why would anyone ever be responsible if they could screw around and then just be given a pat on the head with absolutely no consequences? ARGH! I totally relate to the other brother.
Some religious people don’t understand how atheists could be moral, because without the fear of hell why would anyone take any responsibility for their actions at all? I think the answer is the same – there ARE consequences, natural consequences, and those are what we learn from. Punishment is EXTRA. This guy is humiliated, starving, broke and scared that his own family won’t accept him. That’s not “no consequences”, he’s going to have to live with his memories and his lack of money forever. But he doesn’t have to beg his family for love, because they chose to not rub salt in his wounds by being withholding as an extra punishment.
I LOVE how many dogs there are in these pictures, and how much care the artists took to depict each dog’s opinion of the event, all the way from Fearful Snarling to Bubbly Joy.
Good work, artists!
The ‘SOLID’ painting brings tears to my eyes. He’s so scared to come home, because he knows he’s fucked it up, but his dad is so overjoyed to see his baby boy. He’s missed him so much.
I don’t like the story and the rest of the pictures don’t do a thing for me. But I’m just wrecked over that one. He gets to see his son again!
I am 100% for serious in love with that one. His face is so desperate… none of the other ones are half as expressive as that guy. It’s a face you could only make with your family, while trying to work up an admission and apology, but it’s falling so flat that all you can do is helplessly half-smile with tears in your eyes.
The goatless brother in The One With the Copper also has his left arm on the wrong way, which is *a lot* to deal with.
I feel like crying-into-hanky prodigal is sitting on his dad’s lap in a way that makes me a trifle uncomfortable. As does the proximity of Dad’s hand to prodigal’s nipple.
I do get a Brideshead Revisited vibe from Tall Skinny Victorian, but that servant just visible through the door is lurking so stealthily I think it’s possible he’s about to confess to knocking her up.
Also, I just horrified myself with this sequence of thoughts:
–weird fur rug those Victorians have under the table
–why is Dad pressing down on it with his foot? Does he think it’s going to escape? Is he trying to push it under the table?
–hey there’s no dog in this one OH MY GOD THERE’S NO DOG IN THIS ONE
I feel somehow Mallory is to blame for this. 😉
I see a lot of good theories about the five-year-old here, and I’m not saying any of y’all are wrong…
but CLEARLY he squandered his fortune learning how to do the Macarena from a disreputable dance instructor.
And his dad’s like “I hope you’ve learned your lesson” and he’s like “No dad, I didn’t, that’s the point, I ran out of money before we got to the Heyyyyyy Macarena part and that’s like the most important part, you don’t understand, I have to go back.”
The 1890s one is just Bertie stumbling home after 72 hours at the Drones sans valet, promising Jeeves that he can get rid of the awful striped shirts if he’ll just please, please make up a batch of his special concoction.
I posit that the so-called begrudging mom is actually Goatless gesturing at Prodigal like “WHAT. YOU CAN’T BE FUCKING SERIOUS. LOOK AT THIS ASSHOLE.”
is anyone else getting a weird mr tumnus vibe from prodigal son #2? gives a whole new significance to the goat thing. I DON’T HAVE EVEN A GOAT AND MEANWHILE MY BROTHER HAS ACTUAL GOAT LEGS.
The one you disqualified is not five, he is a hobbit, and thus youthful looking for a Very Long Time.
Knittleworker is a literal spinster with her distaff. No angry brother, just a spinster sister and a licky dog.
I like that the townspeople in the first flower crown one have surprised gestures but totally bland faces, like an awkward community theater troupe.
spinster. SPINster! revelation.
Amazing, isn’t it, how it all falls into place when you connect those two words? You can go back and look at a lot of women’s history with new eyes.
I’ve always had sympathy for the angry brother; like, he’s got a completely valid point! I know the dad’s all “Son I know you’re the good one and as soon as I kick off you get everything that’s left” but THAT’S NOT THE POINT, DAD.
I read this as the Prodigy Son, and now I have “Firestarter” stuck in my head…
The second one is clearly John Hawkes, and should be forgiven immediately.
Like all the self-respecting gutter punks I’ve ever known, Prodigal always has a dog in tow.
Are you secretly a Catholic, Mallory? This was the gospel just 2 weeks ago, and I still love it. Don’t forget the part about the prodigal getting a job feeding pigs and wasn’t allowed to eat any of their food, so he was starving. That was the last straw and made him come home. Love all of these.
I think you've stumbled on the actual perfect definition for "knittlework"!
I can’t decide whether Son #2 is going “uh…hi Dad…” and nervously waiting to be let in, or is skeptically opening the door to these weird robed men who’ve come knocking on the door to his apartment.
Because the daughters supposedly got him so drunk he couldn't tell he was shagging his own daughters. Dude, if you're that drunk, you're too drunk to get it up.
In other words, a really nasty cover up for child abuse.