We have received a short story titled ‘A Perfect Possession’ by Alison Louise Kennedy for later discussion at our literature seminar. Just like the previous ones, it has some elements to feel disturbed or even provoked of: it's a monologue of a parent raising a handicapped boy with his or her spouse (we cannot know whether the wife or husband is talking) with an extreme and somewhat contradictory approach seemingly based on Catholic beliefs.
This quite essay-like – and at most points, very obscure – monologue tells us that they are to protect the child from every single thing that could be considered as a sin somehow, putting stress on the child’s sexual attitude. At this point, the parent admits they were a bit confused about knowing that ‘children come from sin’, but it seems they were most keen justifying it with some logical leap and dealing with the kid’s sins instead. It doesn't turn out what kind of disease the child suffers in (it seems to be a mental or nervous one, or both), but it’s probably the main reason for the endeavour to make their son perfect by some other means. Perhaps it's their fear of facing sin: they rather deny they have sinned – however, the diseased child reminds them of it – hammering in their nails voluntarily (saying ‘this is more a privilege than punishment and we treasure it’).
They also cross a basic Christian principle, in my opinion: since they are to completely prevent the child’s exposure to sin, the innocence achieved this way is going to be invalid; however, at the end of the monologue, it turns out they’ve failed to achieve their plan perfectly.
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