Analyse af Charles Bukowskis novelle 'Son of Satan'

There is a need in human nature to display strength, to show what we can do, and when we give in to that need, it makes us do inconceivable things. It is the same part that makes you feel compelled to do what is expected of you. Every person around you has some sort of idea what you can and should do, and sometimes, you will find yourself forced to do something that you in reality have no desire to do because of those people. In Charles Bukowski’s short story “Son of Satan”, we meet a young boy, who, together with his friends, takes it upon himself to sentence a neighboring kid to death for lying about shagging a girl beneath his house. In his gut, the narrator knows that it is wrong and that he actually does not want to punish this other boy, but the others expect their leader to make decisions and carry them out. In the end, his actions bring him into trouble with his father, a brusque and scary man who beats him half to death. But the boy seems hardly to notice the stinging beatings, which infuriates the father and he calls him the “Son of Satan”. The boy is caught in a web of expectations from the people around him, and in the end, he cannot - and does not want to - fulfill any wishes except his own, which is to be strong and escape his father.