The Secret Lost in the Water: the Effects of Modernization

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The Secret Lost in the Water: The Effects of Modernization Due to modernization, several negative changes have penetrated basic family traditions because it changes the mindset of the society. Rural societies have become more urbanized and family members break away from the family restrictions. This results in weakening the family authority, family ties and the very family itself. These effects can also be observed in the short story, “The Secret Lost in the Water”. The story is about a boy whose only tie to his father was taken away from him towards the end of the story because of the effects of modernization. Previous family traditions are lost because of the technology shifts, generation gap and communication breakdown. The technology shift in this story is represented by the camera crew and the technicians who only wanted to witness the fathers’ gift for their movie. The camera crew, technicians and farmer did not have any personal ties to this gift. The gift that the father passed on to his son, the narrator, was meant to be a bond shared between only father and son. This is evident because the father only introduced his gift to his son on a personal level and between the two of them. Also, the specialists were not able to find the water which made it clear that this gift was exclusive only to the father. The fact that the father’s gift was going to be exposed in a film to people outside of the village caused negative impact on this particular family’s tradition. Another shift in this story comes from the generation gap between the father and son. Obviously the father in this story was born in a completely different generation than his son. He did pass down and share the secret to his gift to his son, the narrator. Regardless of this the two were born in different generations, which mean different values. It is evident that the narrators father came from a

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