Swami And His Father's Relationship In A Hero

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Discuss the presentation of family relationships in ‘A Hero’ ‘A Hero’ is a sort story by R.K. Narayan, about a young boy, Swami who is afraid to sleep alone. However, his patriarchal father forces him to, and on that night a burglar comes to visit. Unintentionally, Swami causes the burglar to fall and thus stop him from his crime – making Swami a hero. Throughout the story, we meet three main family members – Granny, Father and Mother. These characters possess different and interesting relationships between them. The first relationship to occur in the passage is between Swami and his father. Straight away, we see that Father is eager for his young son to become a powerful, courageous man. He attempts to achieve this by challenging the boy “Can you prove you have courage? Let me see if you can sleep alone tonight” – Father challenges his son to teach him what are traditionally important traits for men. This is a harsh kind of love – Father may seem irrational and brutal to Swami but at heart, he just wants to teach his boy to be courageous. This idea of tough parenting is carried across again here “He saw cruelty in his father’s nature”, The reader is given an insight into Swami’s feelings towards his father at this stage in the story. Father is represented here as a fierce, ferocious character, even towards his own child.…show more content…
This quote also refers back to Father’s ruthless parenting, as Father finds it acceptable to blackmail poor, young

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