A Rose For Emily And The Boat By Alistair Macleod

From the second we are born to the final moments of life, our perception of life is recounted by our experiences—both past and present—that shape our identity. While many of us hold onto vivid memories from our childhood, such as the thrill of losing a first tooth or getting ice cream on a sunny day at the park in 2007, these memories become a natural facet of our sense of self. Yet, the course of our lives often unfolds beyond our control, subjecting us to unforeseen and sometimes traumatic events. These moments of trauma can profoundly impact our journey of self-discovery and our identity, as we try to create our own sense of who we are. In the short stories “A Rose for Emily” and “The Boat,” protagonists navigate their own traumatic experiences,

In the short story, the narrator has a dream to pursue his education; however, there's pressure to follow his family tradition that the men should be fishermen. The narrator states “and it has been like this for six generations and sixty-five years. Before his father and grandfather and before his great-grandfather and his great-great-grandfather. Before them all, they had fished the sea." (MacLeod,2024) This indicates that the narrator feels a generational pressure and responsibility to continue and follow his family's lineage. This pressure that the narrator feels due to the generational tradition that all the men in his family lineage were and should be fisherman, obviously limits his personal growth, because he’s expected to adhere to a tradition that was passed down through generations and is judged because of the idea of wanting the opportunity to go beyond being a fisherman and getting an education; possibly exploring his own interests and passions. As a reader, you can feel the narrator’s sense of guilt, and feeling trapped in a predetermined path that he doesn't want to follow. Due to this mindset, the narrator's father showed signs of disappointment as his own son would be the one to break the family tradition causing some conflict and disassociation between the narrator and his father. The narrator claims “his father did not understand what it was that the boy wanted, but he was sure that whatever it was it had very little to do with fishing." (MacLeod,2024) The disassociation between the narrator and his father encourages thoughts of conflict and doubt in the narrators' dreams because he feels like he owes this to his father and if he disobeys