“But I had already killed him over and over in my mind. In a robbery, a
duel, a terrorist attack, with bullets, grenades…This time I had apparently succeeded. He was dead, truly dead”
This line reveals just how complex the narrator’s emotions are. From despising her absentee father and wishing he suffers for leaving their family, she is now forced to contend with the reality of his agony and the agony of those who truly knew him. The tone in this line is bitter and remonstrative and portrays how she feels towards her father and the entire situation where the father she’s spent so much time obsessing over and wondering about is reunited with her only at his death. She feels that she had been treated unfairly, and she is justified in feeling that way, and feels resentment towards her mother who attempted to hide her away from her father and her father who did not make any effort to be reunited with her. All in all, the narrator’s feelings are very complex and this is reflected in the tone of the text, and the line I selected in particular, where she is unsure whether to be happy, indifferent, angry, somber, or devastated and these jumble of thoughts and emotions creates great confusion within her.
Hey Mohammed,
I think you chose a great quote in the short story. As you said, the narrator feels a great sense of bitterness and resentment for how her father abandoned her. She feels such a strong sense of hatred that she tries to forget about her father in her mind and pretend like he is not there. The fact that she feels a sense of remorse and guilt for his actual death leaves confusion in her because she thought that her father is supposed to be this person that she despises. I think this comes to show that the narrator still has sympathy and compassion for her father deep inside her.