Parental Sacrifice in Three Stories

Paper Summary:

The paper examines three short stories, "Marriage is a Private Affair," "War" and "All is Burning", and how they illustrate three different facets of parental sacrifice. The paper shows how each story depicts the complexity of the parent-child relationship, as well as the parents' willingness to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their children.

From the Paper:

"Chinua Achebe's story "Marriage is a Private Affair" depicts the tension that frequently occurs between children and parents generally because of a difference in points of view. In this story, a son must choose between his father and the woman he loves since his parent does not accept his son's marriage out of love. Cultural factors are crucial in this case in the sense that tension within the family arises as a result of the opposition between the modern perception of marriage, love and family as expressed by the son, and the old patriarchal order that the father upholds. In fact, the determination with which the father wants to preserve tradition eventually causes a breach between him and his only son."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Achebe, Chinua. Marriage is a Private Affair.
• Arasanayagam, Jean. All is Burning.
• Pirandello, Luigi. War.
• Balogun, F. Odun. (1991) Tradition and Modernity in the African Short Story: An Introduction to a Literature in Search of Critics. New York: Greenwood Press, 65-80.
• Sjobohm, Anders. (1992). Someone Smashed in the Door and Gave Me My Freedom: On the Writings of Jean Arasanayagam. World Literature Today, 66.1, 35-38.

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