Fathers not only set examples for their children, they provide guidance and relationships that are deeply rooted in memory. In Ninh Pain of War, Kien meets his father in his memory, while in Pramoedya This Land of Man, Minke must face his father alive and in man. Both Pain of War and This Land of Men, through their various relationships of kinship, demonstrate the ability to character development. With such an unusual contrast between his fathers, Kien would die unsure of which example to follow, which habit to kill, which to live life. Kien’s broad spectrum of leadership from both fathers is Ninh’s way of establishing an ambiguous and compassionate character who cannot make fully independent judgments, which later causes him to look back, after years of mistakes and simple measures, and lament that “it is too late now” (Ninh 127).
On the other hand, Minke has a single father who seems to have the sole purpose of leading him away from his old traditions. Throughout his life, Minke is constantly forced to evade his father’s lust with exclamations, “I don’t want to be an official. I prefer to be free, as I am now” (Pramoedya 106). When Minke is forced to meet his father after the police ignored his father’s letter, instead of welcoming Minke, the father states that “the only reason for forgiving you is that you crossed the line and went up” (Pramoedya. 124). Thus, Pramoedya’s impudent accusations of defection directed by the father are similar to the son in which the father cries “you have forgotten your parents, your duties as a child” (Pramoedya 125) is intended to push Minke further away from his father’s will. and by the same, from tradition. The conflict with Minke’s father therefore became a microcosm of the struggle against tyranny and social injustice: Pramoedya took Minke’s father’s disdain and brought it to the larger theme of struggles against the vanity of the country and the Dutch government.
Ninh does not include any such conflict in Kien’s relationship with his fathers, indeed Kien’s feelings towards his fathers combined with what in his memory only increases Ninh’s main assertions: the pain of a mere reflection of love. I mourn the war. Although his father was at first despondent and melancholy, every time Kien “entered into his father’s study, his heart ached and suffocated with pity” (Ninh 124). Similarly, after visiting his second father, the poet Kien feels “his familiarity with his soul” (Ninh 59). When the Fathers of Kien are both brought back to memory forever, their longing cannot but be inflamed, and as a result, the sight of them in the mind, like everything else from the past, becomes a parable of perfection. Kienrelationships”>relationships with fathers are one single factor that led him to conclude “he was much happier when he looked. into the past” (Ninh 195). Through the pain of War Ninh reveals how Kien’s struggle with loss and longing transforms into an emotional breakdown, as “the pains [prevent] him from relaxing by continually luring him into the past” (Ninh 232) where living fathers and where he can love them freely.
Minke’s father remains very much alive throughout This Land of Man and because of the Pramoedy’s emphasis on the emotional disconnection and incompatibility of the two, Minke’s journey towards revolution in both mind and body is constantly progressing. Early in the novel Pramoedya reveals that Minke’s father is emotionally distant when Minke tells his “parents never marked the time of [her] birth” (Pramoedya 19). By the time Minke is finally forced to face his father emotional abuse and weak as his father asks “Would you be humiliated by this whip in public do you need?” (Pramoedya 124). Few Fathers note such things and like Minke, they are abused because of the gains of their father, who “suffered all this as a virgin” (Pramoedya 132), distinguishing her innocence from such cruel punishments and even the subject of martyrdom Minke uses the presence as a constant stumbling block, even when Minke flees to Wonokrom, seeking refuge from outdated cultural patterns. The memory of his father cannot simply be forgotten so that the endless train of letters arrives in which Minke is “incompetent to be near” (Pramoedya 276). which naturally leads to Minke thinking that “[he] was ready to leave everything. ] family” (Pramoedya 125). Hence, seeking meaning and knowledge in action of freedom and independence, establishing Minke’s father as a catalyst for the desire for autonomy.
While the differences between father and son relationships in This Man’s Land and War Sorrow are important to understanding character development, one of the stories’ similarities is argued as imperative. In both novels, the father occupies a major place in determining the path of the protagonists, his influence never fully leaving the consideration of both characters. For Kien, this prominence of feelings towards fathers reinforces the sense of painful longing for the past, while Pramoedya uses the relationship of the father to demonstrate the need for a proper father figure to facilitate the revolution in the child. Above all, the prominence of the father is characteristic of each new success. Both players focus on the father’s power to determine how the son lives the rest of his life, which is fundamental in understanding the character’s consciousness.
The state of the father-son relationship can certainly give an idea of how the first parties can and will work through the newness. Kien develops a broken perspective of reminiscence because of his deceased fathers, who can only move him in memory, which echoes Ninh’s assertion of the relationship between the sadness of war and love. Meanwhile, Minke’s latest thirst for independence follows the tyranny of a living father, which sets up the further plot of his Pramoedy. -determination in the face of tradition. Not only is this a way for the author to mark the protagonist’s development in a way that explains his actions; but it also belongs to humanity universally. In a world where the future is not simply on the next page, Ninh and Pramoedya together illustrate how influence can influence the father. relations from loose canons to incubating breakdowns and consequently based on the responsibility of the father to the son or daughter.
Bibliography:
Ninh, Bao. Three wars London: Vintage, 2005. Print.
Toer, Pramoedya Ananta. This Land of Men New York, NY: Morrow, 1991. Print.
