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Parental Relationships In Music Of The Swamp, And Alison Bechdel

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Introspection on Parental Relationships
Relationships between parents and children are an important aspect of life. It forms a basis of one’s life, through childhood, in terms of learning morals and developing one’s personality. Lewis Nordan, the author of Music of the Swamp, and Alison Bechdel, the author of Fun Home, describe their version of a parent- child relationship by crafting their stories in which the children strive for love and acceptance, while receiving doubt, sadness, and distance from their parents, and as a result, the children acquire a lifelong impact on their personality. In Music of the Swamp, Sugar Mecklin has a alcoholic father and a reserved mother. Both parents seem distressed, because of their geography, or at one another, and do not seem to enlighten Sugar by any means. Their influence, especially his father’s, is strong, and since most of Sugar’s actions are focused on either proving his parents wrong, or mirroring their emotions, Sugar is putting his own happiness at stake. For instance, Sugar’s father always indicates to him that their geography, the Delta, is surrounded by death, therefore Sugar takes his father’s persistent remark as a metaphorical challenge- to prove his father wrong; he uncontrollably digs in his yard as a result, only to become additionally depressed from the outcome. Furthermore, Sugar indicates that his father always encompasses ill luck, and there are multiple incidences in which his father experiences suicidal

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