Beginning of Reading Prompt

Prompt 10: Write about connections that you made while reading the chapter/book.  How does something remind you of your experiences or people you know or have known?

       In the first chapter of Siddhartha, Siddhartha decides that he would like to leave his family and become a Samana, which is a wandering monk of ancient India in certain ascetic traditions, including Buddhism.  He asks his father for permission to leave and his father becomes very unhappy because he does not want his son to leave.  To protest, Siddhartha remains standing in his place until dawn, when his father finally relents.

Like most teenagers, I can relate to having a disagreement with my parents.  However, the fights that I have with my parents are very different from the type of “fight” that Siddhartha had with his father.  Serious arguments between a parents and a teenager in America usually escalate to a level with yelling and cursing, if not physical violence.  Although the fact that a young adult is disagreeing with a parent is the same, the manner in which Siddhartha and his father fight is very different from the American way, for they use stillness and time in place of angry words and raised voices.  Siddhartha’s father only states his opinion once when he says “’It is not seemly for Brahmins to utter forceful and angry words, but there is displeasure in my heart.  I should not like to hear you make this request a second time” (Hesse 7).  For this reason, I can only form a partial connection to the text.