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A Secret Lost In The Water Short Story

Decent Essays

This is an essay about the importance of Heritage and Tradition, using examples and aspects from the short story "A Secret Lost in the water" By Roch Carrier. Heritage and tradition play a crucial role in an individual's identity because they provide knowledge which is essential, consequently, when we lose these elements, we feel as though we have lost a part of ourselves. As leaders, parents must strive for the opportunities for children to learn for themselves, incorporating inheritance into their daily lives. When the father teaches the boy how to find water, this symbolizes the teaching of tradition. The father shows how much he wants his son to learn this, thus saying how important it is that his son knows how to dowse. Though the technique of dowsing is hard to perfect, this boy is dowsing without the struggle at a young age. As a result, his father is stern yet encouraging in his teaching, because his child is close to dropping the Y-shaped stick. This scene is an example of how important heritage is because his father then states that water is more important than learning writing, with the quote, "I've just taught you how to find a spring. It's something my own father taught me. It isn't something you learn in school. And it isn't useless: a man can get along without writing and arithmetic, but he can never get along without water." The man even tells his son that his own father taught him this, then continuing on to state that water is a very important element

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