Critical Essay: "What Stays in The Family"

Family secrets will always remain secrets, and many parents and children may hold onto these secrets for generations before being found out. However, some family members might not hold them for long as the psychological pressure becomes too much to handle. Therefore they might find themselves revealing the secrets to be freed from that personality imprisonment of the actual life they are living. A little girl, Lorna Crozier, was brought up by two different parents in a family of four: an alcoholic father and an unconditionally supportive mother to her and her brother. Crozier was always pretending to be happy, someone with a regular father, someone without problems, and someone else all in the bid to maintain the family secret of the father with drinking problems (Crozier, p.78).

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Surprisingly, the pretense was year after year, turning her into an actress without knowing it. With a deduced talent from deception by her family's situation and her specifically encouraging mother, she developed her story-teller and writing skills. Fate is not something within one's control due to the varying aspects of life for which an individual has only partial control. Crozier lived a life of pretense of her mostly intoxicated and embarrassing father due to alcoholism (Crozier, p.79). She knew she had a destiny but had little control of the world around her and decides to open up on her father's addiction by publishing a series of poems. Therefore in line with the above, the poem "What stays in the family" by Lorna Crozier is an appropriate illustration of one's upbringing that could influence the individual's destiny and view the world from a lively and influential angle. The document will, thus, critically analyze the essay by Crozier in the subsequent paragraphs. Moreover, the paper will agree with the author in detailing the primary theme of "acceptance of one's destiny" evident in the essay.

The essay details Lorna Crozier and the mother hiding their father's alcoholism and embarrassing behavior that occurs severally arising from his intoxication. It is a hurdle to both of them, particularly the girl, as she is forced to lie to her friends to cover up the truth of the family's situation arising from the father. Lorna Crozier's mother has to beg the husband to give her money (Crozier, p.79). She, therefore, has to keep herself busy working menial jobs but enough to earn a living. She minimizes her social life, probably to mention she has one. Crozier's mother leads an independent life, void of her husband. The trouble of always protecting an alcoholic father's family secret turned out difficult than just being honest with the situation from the beginning. That is when the daughter decides to open up and publish a series of poems on the father's addiction.

In the first sections of her essay, Crozier asserts that her mother had to almost beg for grocery money. The father would "hand her a one-dollar bill with the attitude of a patron bestowing great gifts" (Crozier, p.79). The author uses the stylistic approach too in detailing that it might have been of her strength to hide the truth of her father's alcoholism that turned her into an actress without knowing it, "It was my energy that impressed them, I guess, and my ability to throw myself into another character… it came from pretending to the world that everything was okay in my family." Through the assertion, she expressed feelings through a strong declaration, a positive and confident statement of the fact (Mehta, p.212). Moreover, Crozier had the assertion her father would not show up at her valedictorian award. She informed the principal of the same confidently, only for the father to later show up intoxicated, embarrassing her further.

The memoir, chronologically written, commences with the father's addiction when she was young and progresses until the father's death when she is a fully-grown woman. The essay's progression is convincing as the reader can reasonably view the passage of the writer's life as she came to terms with the father's alcoholism. Additionally, the story is narrated in the first point of view, evident as the writer uses the pronoun "I" frequently. The point of view from the first person narration was significant as the reader can exactly know how the father's addiction was affecting her directly. The reader can also relate to the daughter's emotions when she had to forcefully lie to her peers in an attempt to cover up the truth of the family situation. Crozier effectively uses rhetorical questions and similes to demonstrate how unintelligent it was for her to hide the father's addiction. She felt she should have been open about the whole situation right from the start.

The idea of Crozier feeling compelled to share her family secret was impactful. She wants to share the family's secret because she feels sharing the story would be a better way of showing off the father on a different light. Having been brought up in a family with the alcoholism of the father looming over the family, she felt that making poems highlighting other aspects of who he really was would bring some personality freedom and comfort to her. Another impactful idea evident in the story is how despite the harsh family environment Crozier grew up in caused by her addicted father; she affirms the piece of writing was not out of anger or shame but love. Writing the poems, she too realizes there is more to her father than his alcoholism, "he is still a hard worker, optimist, curler, and fiddler" (Crozier, p.81)

Personally reading the story, I connected with the author because I could relate to the opinions and experiences the author went through arising from the father's addiction. The details used in presenting information in the memoir were valid details of Crozier's childhood to adulthood. I focused more on an emotional connection with the story and how it must have felt like in every given situation. I feel compelled to research further the theme of "acceptance of one's destiny" depicted throughout the essay by Lorna Crozier.

Works Cited

Crozier, L. “What Stays in the Family,” Passages, 12. Toronto: Gage Learning Operation, 2002, Page 78-81, Print.

Mehta, Ashok B. “Asynchronous Assertions !!!” SystemVerilog Assertions and Functional Coverage, 2013, pp. 211–214., doi:10.1007/978-1-4614-7324-4_15.