Son of satan

a) A summary

“Son of Satan” is a story told by the main character (MC). He tells about an episode which toke place in his past, in an age of 11 years. It is a story, which is very influenced by slang words as characterize the environment where the story takes place.

The story is about a boy in an age of 11, also mentioned as the MC (main character). He is the leader in a group, which consist of two other boys.

In the beginning of the story, the group is planning to go catch Simpson, a boy from the neighborhood. They find him as a disgrace to their neighborhood and accuse him for having sex with a girl under the MC’s house. The MC is taking the word when they arrive at Simpson’s garage, where Simpson is playing handball against himself. The group surrounding Simpson and leads him back to the MC’s backyard. In the backyard they start bullying, verbally and physical, and put him into ‘the kangaroo court’ where they declared Simpson guilty. The MC sentences him to be hanging by neck until dead.

After Simpson has been hanged, all three boys run of. But something makes the MC returning and releasing Simpson. Shocked the MC comes home in the evening, where his furious father is waiting. He beats the MC up, and tells him that he must be a son of Satan. MC is in the end lying under the bed, waiting for the father’s next step.

b) The narrator/main character and his father

The narrator/main character is a boy, who experiences lots of things in an early age of 11 and maybe earlier. We also hear about his father, a nasty, giant man, with brushy eyebrows. The boy’s mother is also mentions, but she does not play a big part of the story. The boy tells about his awful childhood, where he in an early age becomes a part, actually a leader, in a sort of gang group. I do not think that the reason, how he has ended up in that situation, is far away. Social heritage is the main topic.

The social heritage is a notion which describes how you have become who you are. An example could be that you are very good saving money, and so your mother and father were too. That means that you maybe have inherited their personality in a way. The social heritage can be bad or good. In this story is it very bad!

At the last pages in the story, the father is beating and up his son. A strange attempt trying to raise him up by using violence. Probably it is not the first time that the father is doing these sorts of crimes, and I am sure not the last. In fact how the father has been treating his son, I find it very easy to understand why the son has ended up like this gang leader. He got all his personality from his own father. The way of speaking, the way of treating other persons and show other respect are all something that he has experienced by his father who he has been looking up to.

I know that the boy called Simpson is the ‘real’ victim in this story, but in my opinion the main character becomes the biggest victim.