.. It is our only son, ventured the husband." (Pirandello, 1918, line 35). The fat man contradicts the husband of the bulky woman who does nothing but sob: "What difference does it make? You can spoil your only son with excessive attentions, but you cannot love him more than you would all your other children if you had any" (Pirandello, 1918, lines 36-38). He evokes the loss of his son, and admits that he is both happy and proud that his son died in the front. The fat man is the least selfish of the seven passengers because he is capable of recalling his youth, and understanding why his son was happy to die for his country. He does not focus on his pain, but on how his son wanted to die: "Why then shouldn't we consider the feelings of our children whey they are twenty?" (Pirandello, 1918, lines 74-75); he sacrifices his personal feelings i.e. those of a grieving parents in order to accept that it was his son's wish to die for this country. Suddenly, the bulky woman turn her face to the fat man, and asks him "is your son really dead?" (Ibid, lines 116). This question generates a deeply emotional response as the man cannot contain himself and starts crying. The seven people in the compartment are reminiscent of the soldiers on the front. There is profound symbolism in the location of the seven people who are parents, aunts and uncles i.e. A moving train; this symbolizes the effects of war that are felt everywhere, and at the same time, the fact that the grieving parents who are left behind can never truly resume their lives after the loss of their children.
All is Burning" by Jean Arasanayagam explores maternal love and sacrifice. The story takes place in a small village in Sri Lanka, during a time of violent conflict between the Tamils and the Sinhalese. Alice is a simple woman who goes in search of her daughter's loved...
Alice knows her daughter, Seela, is not strong enough to look for the man she loves knowing he might be dead. The atmosphere of the story is one of fear and anguish, but Alice manages to rise above her own feelings in order to help her daughter. While looking for her daughter's man, she stumbles across both corpses and dying men in a field of blood. Here, blood is a symbol of sacrifice, but also of the village women's strength to start over after losing their husbands, brothers and sons. Alice want to protect her daughter thus she decides to go alone: "No. It is my mission. A journey by myself will be safer." (Arasanayagam, 1995, lines 24-25) and try to bring happiness back to her daughter: "Alice wanted this marriage for Seela. Her own man had deserted her when he was pregnant, leaving her to bring up the child alone (Arasanayagam, 1995, lines 44-45).
Although different, the three stories depict the complexity of the parent-child relationship, as well as the parents' willingness to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their children. In the case of Achebe's story, the father decides to sever all ties with his son in order to teach the latter a valuable lesson about doing the right thing in life; secondly, in Pirandello's story, parents can never fully recover after the loss of a child, but learn to accept it because it was their children's wish, and thirdly, parents physically sacrifice for their children, and teach them how to start over in life (Arasanayagam).
Achebe, Chinua. Marriage is a Private Affair.
Arasanayagam, Jean. All is Burning.
Pirandello, Luigi. War.
APA style bibliography:
Book:
Okuda, M., & Okuda, D. (1993). Star trek chronology: The history of the future. New York: Pocket Books.
