Passage To Manhood - Comparing

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an effort to please his father David took it upon himself to kill 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 same words to describe the possum like the much loved lilies shows the reader that it is against David’s morals to kill the animal of such beauty but if such a task has to be completed to gain manhood then so be it. Much to his dismay he shot the possum and in his own mind was a murderer but in the eyes of his father he would be a man. When looking for the dead possum the next morning his father greets him by saying, “What’ve you lost 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 believe that certain tasks have to be completed in order to ...

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