Passage To Manhood - Comparing :: essays research papers

By reading a reliable print textual matters, ratifiers be valet de chambreipulated into accepting or rejecting additional texts. The short story The communion table of the Family create verbally by Michael Welding shares many comparisons with the feature article Boys to Men compose by Stephen Scourfield, and by reading one the proofreader can confuse clear understanding of the other. Symbolism, genre and certain values and attitudes are personate in both the texts and will be further examined in the adjacent essay to show that a readers understanding of particular print texts is determine by the reading of previous texts.By reading The Altar of the Family the reader understands that to become a man a boy has to pass certain tests or ordeals in order to score rights of passage to humankind. This process is all the way shown in the print text The Altar of the Family. David, the boy in The Altar of the Family is under constant pressure from his father to become more mas culine. His father constantly demoralises him and on one occasion brands him a lily-livered poofter. The symbolism of using such words is evident in this text as lilies are something that David admires yet are extremely girlish in the eyes of his father, a man. In an effort to please his father David took it upon himself to eliminate a possum that had become a menace to his father, this would make him a man, this would grant him his rite of passage. The possum eventually appeared and was described as David would describe his much-loved lilies, soft, beautiful, white in the moonlight. The symbolism of using the kindred words to describe the possum like the much loved lilies shows the reader that it is against Davids morals to kill the animal of such beauty and if such a task has to be completed to gain manhood then so be it. Much to his dismay he iridescent the possum and in his own mind was a murderer just in the eyes of his father he would be a man. When look for the dead po ssum the next morning his father greets him by saying, Whatve you doomed old man? and this shows the reader that David has now become a man in his fathers eyes.By reading The Altar of the Family the reader is led to weigh that certain tasks have to be completed in order to gain manhood.