The Shark Net Character Analysis

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Parents often have a large influence over their young children. For some, their parents’ smile means the world to them and for others, they tend to push themselves to the limits just to gain their parents’ approval. As they are the child’s parents, they are looked up to and learned from. To a child in his learning stage of life, who cannot differentiate from right to wrong, they need parental guidance and usually learn just by watching their parents’ actions. A learning child picks things up quickly and is inclined to imitate whomever they see. An example would be their parent’s mannerism and way of talking. The perception of a child is also different from an adult. Children are more observant of their surroundings and usually notice things that others do not. In the memoir, ‘The Shark Net,’ Robert Drewe realises that his parents have different behaviors in public and in public life. ‘For the first time, I began to notice the way my parents behave in the outside world and the way we lived together... there was Royce and Roy and there was Dorothy and Dot.’ This multiple presentation of themselves made Robert…show more content…
If a child grows up in a brash environment, his words may be crude. If a child grows up in an environment where mannerism and behaviour are very important, he may grow up to become a polite and well- mannered individual. In ‘The Shark Net,’ being in a conservative and traditional family, Robert grew up with many rules and is in constant pressure not to shame his family. Robert grew up in an environment where sex is considered as a sin and where ‘bare- breasted black women from the National Geographic’ was torn out ‘in case the younger children saw them.’ This lead to Robert hiding things from his family such as when he was out with girls because he did not want to disappoint them. Thus, the gap between him and his family grew and only got larger when he married Ruth and had a
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