Son of Satan

Charles Bukowski wrote the short story Son of Satan in 1982. The main themes in the short story, is first of all violence and bullying. The boys’ behavior towards Simpson shows this. Another theme is abuse, which in many places is shown. This becomes clear through the harassment of Simpson, but also in the relationship between the narrator and his dad.

The first link to the theme is when the narrator aggressively talks about Simpson; “We gotta get that son of a bitch (…) He’s a disgrace to this neighborhood!”(p. 1, ll, 8-9)

This is a very aggressively and very stern way to talk about another person. Normally people don’t address another person with the usage of the words “son of a bitch”, if they are on good terms. This indicates that, a possible violent action is going to happen. The short sentences have in its meaning two degrading names for Simpson. This contributes to the bullying that goes on in the story.

Normally people don’t just get violent and abuse, without having some experience about it them-selves. This is surely also the case in this short story.

The link we get to the abusive relationship between the father and son is through the conversation they have, when the boy gets home from his walk. The tone is from the start not very calm, and the situation evolves when the father says; “I’m going to give you the beating of your life!”(p. 6, l. 25)

This could indicate that there have been some beating before, but this one is going to be horrible. As seen here and in the start, there is a threat, in the way both the father and the boy talks. Stating that he is going to beat up his kid, is a way of verbally abuse him. The situation escalades quickly, and the boy abuses his father, when he chews of a bit of his arm.

The reason why the boy/narrator in the story is so violent and abusive, can be found when looking as to how relationship to his father seems to