Our childhood is supposed to be fun and safe and about making good memories. It is about learning, making good observations and creating a stable person. But what’s going to happen to a child when it doesn’t get a happy childhood and will it change the child’s perspective on the world? “Son of Satan” by Charles Bukowski gives an insight on what could happen to a child growing up in an unsafe environment.
The protagonist of the short story, is a young boy who’s been growing up in a violent home. He seems to be a tuff guy but starts experience some conflicting emotions about the actions and decisions he’s making. In the short story the young boy and his friends, Morgan and Hass, plans on going to another boy’s house, Simpson, to confront him about lying and teach him a lesson. When the protagonist and his friends are talking about going to Simpson’s house and are going to confront him about the lying, they are all acting big and tuff, “We gotta get that son of a bitch,” I said. “He’s a disgrace to this neighborhood”” (p. 1, l. 8) at Simpson’s house they are each taking turns hitting him and talking down to him, hyping each other up. But as Simpsons seem the be getting more frighten, the protagonist gets a slight of conscience, as seen in the following quote: “I felt like letting him go. Maybe he hadn’t fucked anybody. Maybe he had just been daydreaming” (p. 2, l. 27). However he is the young leader and needs to be more tuff than the others, he experience a conflict in his emotions where he wants to show sympathy for Simpson but because of the other guys he needs to keep up the “tuff guy” façade. Following later in the story the protagonist returns to help Simpson after Morgan and Hass have left. Its clear that the protagonist is in a conflict about the actions he just took part in.
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