English Literature lesson 4 - Essay Example

It is difficult to maintain a reasonable attitude when only one half of the argument is presented with only an appeal to hold yourself blameless as a newborn baby. This is the crux of my dispute with you regarding our relationship and estrangement. I continue to try to communicate with you as openly as I can, accepting my faults as a father and acknowledging where perhaps I may have had negative affects on you, but you continue to accept no blame or fault in yourself – not in truth. You mouth all the correct platitudes, but you continue to blame me for your character.

You say I am not guilty of causing your distress and so you are correct in that I had no control over the way in which you reacted to my personality. This personality is the result of the choices I have made, the thoughts I have entertained, the knowledge I have gained and the beliefs I have accepted. As my child, I had no reason to expect your personality to be so much different from my own. You are my child and raised by my hand from your birth so you should respond in much the same way to the world as I respond myself.

But you refused to do this. You were a sickly and crying baby and you seemed to cringe at the slightest kindness. Throughout your childhood I attempted to find ways of interacting with you that would not interfere with your development. I took you places with me and showed off your skills to my constituents. To boast about your skills in front of you would have been to unduly inflate your sense of yourself and make you an impossibly spoiled child. Just the fact that I took you should have demonstrated to you the pride I had in you as my son.

I have acknowledged previously that I do have a short temper and tend to say things I do not mean when I’m angry. This was the example of my father and, as you learned, of other shopkeepers and