Too Much Devotion (An analysis of “A Devoted Son”)

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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.

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