Analysis Of Under The Influence By Scott Russell Sanders

In the article “Under the Influence”, Scott Russell Sanders analyses the difficulty his family faced trying to cope up with his father, someone who valued his bottle too much. Sanders talks about his father’s addiction, which pertains to alcoholism, and how the same addiction affected him to an extent of influencing him too. He discusses the influence of his father’s addiction to his life, where he has developed an addiction of his own kind, one relating to work. Sanders opens up about his father’s character and compare it to the one he develops while intoxicated. In this vein, he introduces his father to the audience as “playful, competent and kind when sober” (Sanders 242). In a similar way, he introduces the other side of his father, the drunkard. Sanders holds that, his father transforms into “a stranger, who is as fearful as any graveyard lunatic” (Sanders 243). Sanders hints on how his father’s drunken habit transformed the environment around his family. He scribes on how a cloud of fear formed among his family members in instances where their father came home drunk.

The impact of Sanders’s father's drunkenness on his family ranged from change of behavior among sanders’ siblings, especially his brother who developed the character of the rebellion. The debilitating effects of alcoholism in the family, as sanders observer is prevalent in the society in which we live in. The effects he came to realize after having matured. Sanders also states that he came to understand his childhood behaviors, and that he still suffers from the consequence of his father’s alcoholism. This portrays the monster that is alcoholism and its effects on society as shall be further reviewed in this