The Power of Truth

Sheppard is very impartful or so charming what he wants to cod. In the case of each male child his interior monologue first states his view of the boy and consequently he perceives what he expects to deal there. If he assumes Norton is dull and ungenerous then, no matter what the child does, it will be seen as a symptom of this dullness or selfishness. Sheppard views Johnson in the corresponding personal manner--connecting with the idea of his intelligence, but refusing to see that intelligence is moreover a tool. For Sheppard intelligence nub seeing what he sees and in the way that he sees it. The generosity he wants his son to possess means not making him feel guilty or account fitted for the boy's well-being.

The tension in the story comes from the fact that the boys' obsessions are self-denials against but the kind of neglect that Sheppard is inflicting on them. Johnson has always been seen as whatsoever kind of deformed child of the d fell. Clearly his clubfoot has been altogether that his family could see of him. Superstitiously, his deformity has been identified as the devil's mark. The child has been told that he is in the grip of Satan and, lacking any early(a) kind of attention, he has grown proud of this identification. Norton, on the new(prenominal) hand, has been told nothing. Sheppard, unable to help or protect the child, has adopted the defense of pretending that the child is incapable of being helped.

Sheppard's enormous distress is based on his unwillingness to admit the possibility that evil

But Sheppard has an uphill battle in proving the non-existence of evil. His work at the reformatory is only a voluntary job that he does on weekends. In his obsession, Johnson has to go come to the fore of his way to find chances to prove that evil does not exist.

When he says, "I can't see a child have taboo of garbage cans", the statement means many things (372). He cannot see it in the moxie that his obsession does not let him see the real reasons for the child's miserable existence. He cannot see it in the sense that he does not see his own son eating peanut butter, chocolate cake and ketchup right in front of him. And he "can't" see it in the two senses of "will not" see it, that is he will not allot it and he refuses to see it.

Sheppard's obsession finally leads to the tragedy at the end of the story. By denying that evil can exist Sheppard has refused to see that the warped Johnson may be using his intelligence for an evil purpose. By denying that the accidents of the universe can hurt anyone, Sheppard has refused to recognize another(prenominal) kind of evil and refused to see his son's pain. The intelligence that Sheppard prizes in Johnson is able to run free and achieve an evil purpose only because Sheppard, in his obsession has been, as Anderson would say, "cut off from those who comply other 'truths'".

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