When Richard Adams, the author of Watership Down, was a little boy, he saw a Punch and Judy puppet show. In it, Punch brutally murdered a baby. Adams fled in horror. He grew up but, he recollects in his memoir, "I still remained unable to deal with Mr Punch, in whatever guise he came."
Punch is the brutal monster looming in his fiction. General Woundwort and Genshed and masked versions of Punch.
When I was in high school, a pretty girl once mockingly flirted with me by asking, "Is that a calculator in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?" I immediately pulled a calculator out of my pocket.
The way that Andy and Opie interact is a model for how I want to be a father to my own kids.
Punch is the brutal monster looming in his fiction. General Woundwort and Genshed and masked versions of Punch.
[Or as I like to phrase it, "My purpose is to perpetuate my employment."]