There will come a time in most of our lives where we will have to take care of our parents. Whether it is telling them what they can or can’t eat, or whether or not they are able enough to drive. Indian writer Anita Desai captures this transition in her short story entitled, “A Devoted Son”. In which the son of an aging father, now a successful doctor, takes too much control in his father’s life, to the point where the father has to tell him to stop. Anita beautifully wrote this piece, but she also made a famous statement about her writing when she says, “I wanted to capture that duality of human nature, of human life. Nothing is so simple as it seems; everything is complex, mysterious.” (Anita Desai, page 1417.) In Anita Desai’s story, “A Devoted Son” her statement of “I wanted to capture that duality of human nature, of human life. Nothing is so simple as it seems; everything is complex, mysterious,” validates her story with the duality of human life, how simple life may see, and the complexity behind the simple life.
The first validation made from Desai’s sentence about her story is the duality of human life. The roles of parenting and being a child will switch and the child, now an adult, will take the role of parenting their parents. For some, their parents will be put in a retirement home, where they will wait there until they die. For others, their parents will be in the care of the children they bore; such as the doctor in Desai’s story. At the beginning of the story when the son is granted into a prestigious school, the son, “he came down and touched my feet,” (Desai, A Devoted Son, page 1421) This in India being a great sign of respect toward their elder or parents. However, by the end of the story, the roles have swi...
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...n the son kisses his father’s feet in the beginning of the story, but as the story progresses, the roles switch as the son takes care of his ill father. The simplicity of life can be symbolized by the son being a doctor and only seeing the surface of his dying father’s pain. The complexity of life can be seen as a symbol from the father’s pain. Only the father knows of his pain while his son see’s his father as only one of his patients. Too much devotion can also be a bad thing. The overall message I got from Desai’s story is that maybe sometimes, you need to let things take their course and to understand the feelings of others, especially your own family. After all they are the ones who raised you and brought you to the person you are today, the least a person could do is show the respect that they gave you when you were a child back to the parents who raised you.
Michalopoulou is selectively descriptive when it comes to the main character of the unnamed father. With Michalopoulou's description of the father the reader is led to believe that he does not care about his children: "He'd gotten used to their backs, but it had been a long time since he'd seen their faces" (Michalopoulou, 77). Throughout the story one can see that the father is not completely like what he is first perceived to be. The father sneaks around and begins to cheat on his wife. The reader is informed that the wife is wheelchair bound and unable to move due to paralysis. When the father is "caught" cheating he leaves home and begins a life with his paramour, a young real estate agent. Feeling bad about leaving his two children he attempts to reconnect with them.
The author turn to books in order to attract girl. After realizing at thirteen year old that he did not have the standard of the type of boys girls was seduced by. Richler did not let his lack of self-esteem and confidence depress him instead he used the strength of reading he had to develop a character to draw attention to himself. Since he was not tall like a basketball player, he find loophole in reading book he was good at.
Only through the eyes of the innocent will the world be seen as it is, not how it should be. So often we are driven by our desires to have the best and to be the best, that we lose sight of what we have become, of who we have become. Our main concern is the welfare of ourselves and that of our kin. As time progress and technology tests its limits, mankind will follow suit, however, where will we draw the line in losing touch with our humanity? In the short story written by George Saunders “The Semplica Girl Diaries”, it tells of a middle-class family of six in the near distant future that is making ends meet but strives to provide a more accommodating life whilst competing with a family that is well off. The story is told by the father as he
Creating “worlds of their own, with particular kinds of boundaries separating them from the larger world”, families ideally provide encouragement and protection for each of their members (Handel, xxiv). In J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, however, the Dursleys and Aunt Marge fail to fulfill their roles as Harry’s primary caregivers. In Russell Hoban’s The Mouse and His Child, the father mouse is unable to give his child all that he needs and longs for. In these two children’s stories, the expectation that families will provide physical support, emotional support, and encouragement for their children is not met.
From a traditional housewife in a white middle-class family, Mother has become a strong woman with independent minds. Her character becomes vivid step by step. Mother and Father represent an ordinary family in society. If their lives can change so much, what about millions of others? Their changes indicate the upcoming revolution taking place in this world.
Kathryn Kerns (June 2015) states through research that fathers who play with their children in light hearted ways strengthen the bond between them and their son/daughter, which in turn helps the child's development.With this said, is there some confidential secret to being a good Father? What is the difference between good and great? It does not take blood to be a great Dad. You do not need money to be a great Dad. It does not take the right timing to be a great dad. In The Kite Runner, Hosseini demonstrates the selflessness that characterizes a great father, as Ali, Baba, and Amir all make sacrifices to benefit the lives of their children.
...his was the perfect day of his childhood. This day to shape the days upon.” This shows the simplicity of the man’s life and how something as simple as this memory can stay vivid and detailed in his memory. "… he knelt and smoothed her hair as she slept and he said if he were God he would have made the world just so and no different." (pg 27). Many years after his wife committing suicide he would start to wonder what life would be like if she was around. For me this applies, as sometimes I question how life would be different for me if my parents had never broken up. The man would find it hard to confront his feelings about his wife as I find it hard to confront thinking about my parents. For us to think about our family it hurts but we still do it. I believe this is an important issue you have brought to the reader as it has made me think about things in my life.
The poem is written in the father’s point of view; this gives insight of the father’s character and
Regardless of how a child acts towards their parents, all that matters in the end is their unconditional love for them. However, the time it takes for them to express their gratitude will depend on each child. In the novel The Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri demonstrates this, describing the life of a young boy named Gogol and his continually progressing relationship with his mother. It demonstrates that a child is unable to view his or her parents as a human being until the parent figure experiences a traumatic event that allows the child to empathize with their parents.
What is a family without a parent? A good parent has the image of a provider. Parent is the one that meets all the material needs of the household. The one who worries that nothing lacks to his/her children. Works double shifts and weekends. A good parent has not yet met the present needs, when others have been created; he/she wears out feverishly. But yet he/ she still have time to have the unique experience of seeing the children grow. Having children is a major life-course event no matter what country people live. Children alter how men and women live and how they can allocate their time. Money is required to support children, and there is also more to do in the households with children. Historically, women have done the extra work chil-dren create. Who engenders ch...
As I explore the most efficient way to share the prevailing theme of this fictional short story, I believe that Ms. Frye struck the compelling truth found in this piece of work. Frye (1981) shares, “The final coherence of the mother is only the enriched understanding of the separateness of all people – even parents from children – and the necessity to perceive and foster the value of each autonomous selfhood although external constraints and forces will always present limits.” The author’s narrative style seems to capitalize on building natural and lifelike characters in a socioeconomic setting from an apparently challenging time in our nation’s history while using a point of view that speaks volumes to the internal conflict that parents face while raising children. The story may appear as the bitter pill representing the pains that parents and their children face regarding the constraints of social expectations and economic sustainability; however, I believe the author’s work created a virtual reality tour of this issue making it the best of the
As I reflect on this autobiography project, I feel that I found some reasons for my thoughts and behaviors. I do not follow many of the strict values like religion; I seem to follow the path of the males in the family. My adjustment to blindness was both helped and hindered from both my parents. My father encouraged me to explore and not to be discouraged by failure or defeat, while my mother kept strongly encouraging me to improve my life. As I eventually get married and start my own family, I will understand the importance of expressed emotions and how my upbringing influenced my roles in the present and future families.
It is a common theme throughout history that children “owe” it to their parents to do right by them by any means necessary in return for the parents years of hard work, personal sacrifices, and parental obligations to the child; whether that be through personal sacrifices or simply lending a helping hand. Modern philosophy attempts to disregard the ties of family entirely in order to prove that children do not voluntarily ask for sacrifices of their parents, or even the more dramatic claim – “life.” More conservative philosophers such as Christina Hoff Summers defends the moral duties of the more traditional sense of family and the personal morality involved in the family unit. The ideas presented on the tradition that family duties are stronger bonds than those of friends could potentially affect the overall quality of life in adults. In this paper I am going to argue that the traditional sense of family and its duties are stronger than the duties demanded of friendship.
The poem His stillness by Sharon Olds gave her a definite understanding of the man that she called “father.” Olds grew up in an abusive family home because her dad was always known as an alcoholic. Because of her dad’s habit, created hard living environments for her and she wished that her parents never got married. Whenever liquor was in her dad’s system, he was unemotional making life for Olds hard. She never described the things that he did to her. The visit to the doctor’s office made her opened up to her dad. She saw her dad as lovely and caring family man and she never imagine him being the man that he was at the doctor’s office. He did not overreacted when he heard news; instead he was calm and accepted the news. She felt tremendously sad for her dad and from there now she started noticing the man she never knew. Olds and her dad bond grew stronger at the doctor’s office. The man she had always known for his abusive behavior turned out the most caring man in the world.
Nonetheless, this really is a tale of compelling love between the boy and his father. The actions of the boy throughout the story indicate that he really does love his father and seems very torn between his mother expectations and his father’s light heartedness. Many adults and children know this family circumstance so well that one can easily see the characters’ identities without the author even giving the boy and his father a name. Even without other surrounding verification of their lives, the plot, characters, and narrative have meshed together quite well.