The short story A Secret Lost In The Water implies the impact of losing personal identity due to environmental circumstances and factors that heavily changes the way individuals think about their sense of self when placed with others hence what differentiates them to be different. When children are young, their parents are usually whom they look up to for all the answers and resolutions when challenges and obstacles occur in their lives. The parents act as guides who lead them on the path to a successful life and often the past of children is reflected upon the previous lessons the parents spent their time on teaching them. In the short story A Secret Lost In The Water, Carrier implies that traditional values are at risk of fading away in modern society due to the lack of communication between parents and children thus leading to regrets and guilt throughout generational gaps.
In the course of the story, relationship divisions between the life experiences of the father and son lead to a sense of segregation impacting the connection of the two individuals present in two cohorts of different generations. Evidence of this was shown in the passage of the short story when the narrator stated that he and his father “scarcely talked anymore” (Pg.1). The son was “very intoxicated by the new game of spelling” (Pg.1) which led to the dispassion of his father’s lessons but rather, he was interested in the world’s way of teaching which involved words and numbers. Generational gaps lead to a disconnection of the father-son relationship and the father’s presence of his strange gifts was no longer inclusive in the life of his son. From the father’s perspective, Arithmetic numbers and English letters are not what he embraces to be the most important when it comes to the importance of living. “But he can never get along without water”(Pg.1).
The son strives for a completely different perspective on what he thinks will lead him to the ideal successful life his mind wanted to shape his future into. The different outcome of standards eventually causes the father to embrace the idea that his son no longer had an initial interest in listening to his personal experiences that he wanted to pass on to the future generation of children. This failure was the first stage of dislocation impacting the relationship, causing a fade of personal identity within the son. When the narrator declares that he was “no longer interested” (Pg.1) and he didn’t want to “hear him [the father] talk about his adventures during the long weeks when he was far away from the house”(Pg.1), the passage evidence illustrated the detachment of the relationship chain between the father and son. The father understood the risk of losing the only inheritance of the secret to his abilities when his son refuses to be taught. His last attempt on getting the interest of his son to reappear is by showing him the secret gift of finding a spring underwater. The father chooses to do this in order to keep his son on the designated path he wanted his son to look towards and pursue forwards.
Alternatively, the son chooses to pursue his understatement of what success is and was enrolled into school. While he was learning complicated writing and arithmetics, the old traditional lessons taught by his father were carried away by time, and soon they faded away. As years passed by, the narrator had already learnt, adapted and positioned himself in his generation of adults; he no longer understood the significance of his father’s previous lessons and tricks. Simultaneously, the link between his father and him was finally broken when the father encountered death. The presence of this problem was only determined when the son came in touch with the alder branch a farmer handed him. The alder never dried out after his father used it to find water and the motif of this branch indicates the symbolic meaning behind the traditional values passed onto generations after generations. The negligence of the son’s actions in appreciating the valuable lessons once taught by his father showed the once vivid relationship between them has now completely disappeared.
A Secret Lost In The Water declares the narration of a son growing up in the experience stories his father surrounded him with during the early ages of his childhood. The son lived his whole life failing to realize the importance of those experiences and stories that his father attempted in trying to pass onto him and how much it was worth compared to what the world would give him. After years passed by, the son realized the missed opportunity he had lost in gaining utilized time with his deceased father. “I had forgotten my father’s knowledge” (Pg.2), as many grow up without understanding the heavy amount of importance that occurred in their life until they have lost it and it faded away with time. It reveals the sad truth behind the unavoidable disconnection of relationships as time steps in and creates the risk of losing connection.
Personal Experience:
Personal experiences connecting to the overall theme of this story introduces my background of having a mixed heritage of both Canadian and Chinese. The harsh reality of having to prioritize one cultural identity over another leads to a difficult process of which one to choose. Having to be fully exposed to two different cultural backgrounds yet still holding a tight grip onto both, creates internal conflict in my life as well as my family. Over the past few years, the development of my Chinese cultural identity started to decrease and the culture itself is starting to slowly lose its position in my sense of self. The little time and effort that has been put into practicing and acknowledging the significance of my Chinese heritage caused that part of me to slowly fade away. Environmental factors persuade my personal thoughts of who I strive to become in order to fit in with the rest of society and how my overall identity should be shaped and structured. As years pass by, English became my dominant use of language either throughout school or at home, the mandatory need of using Mandarin Chinese is rare and often forgotten. The Chinese cultural identity within me no longer holds its high position and the needs to be prioritized.
The stuttering of words and the difficult process of sentences makes that special part of my identity collapse even further. The fearful thoughts of what the consequences may eventually lead to forces me to form a sense of precautionary and outline the possible attempts to shift myself away from the risk of losing something I value heavily. The numerous video calls with the close ones I have back in China embraces me to face the harsh reality of understanding that part of me losing a connection to my current self. Throughout the current years, breaking the language barrier that’s stopping me from communicating with my family living back in China is what I want my future endeavors to complete and gain success in.
