Acid is a short story about a boy named Hughie who fell into a large container of acid. After hearing his son’s cry for help Hughie’s father, while all the other works gawked at the screaming, comes to push the rest of his floating upper body under the acid. It may be hard to tell how the old man felt because his stalwart approach, but understating this is his son he must have been significant impact. When he goes “dunk” his son into the acid, the old man loves his son and did to end Hughie’s suffering and that of his family.
Hughie’s father was off doing his work when he heard the screaming, he went to help while everyone else remained stuck in place. “Except for one old fellow the large body of men was so horrified that for a time not one of them could move.” Somewhere along the way he must have realized that this was in fact his son that was screaming in agony and his heart must have sank like an anchor. Many people would have been frozen then, in panic, fear, and sadness all combined, but he pressed on and did not stop. “In an instant this old fellow who was also the young man’s father had clambered up and along
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With only Hughie’s head and shoulders left his father comes to him with the pole. “Sorry Hughie, he said. And then he ducked the young man below the surface.” The old man does not break down or panic now either, he does not cry or lose control. He is serene in his execution of pushing the rest of his son under the acid. But even in doing that, he is probability thinking of his wife, the mother of his son. He does not want to bring what is left of his son home, a dismembered body half eroded by acid. It would feel like killing his wife too. It maybe horrible, but he still did it out of love to spare what was left of his son and spare the other people who loved him. The responsibility he had over his son. He spent his son’s entire lifetime taking care of him, raising him and now in an instant his son is gone