Ancestral Burden

When reading Ancestral Burden I was reminded of a couple other works that I have read regarding a similar topic.  The first was a novel, Trinity by Leon Uris.  In the beginning of the novel Conor Larkin wants to go to school but his father does not approve because the tradition of their family is of hard work and dedication to the land.  The second work that popped into my head was the poem “Digging” by Seamus Heaney.  This poem has a similar problem to the one in Trinity in that the speaker of the poem becomes a writer and his family is not so proud of him because both his father and his grandfather worked in the fields.  This leads me back the “Ancestral Burden.”  This poem starts by laying out the tradition of the speaker and just like the works I mentioned earlier the speaker goes against the family tradition, in this case crying was frowned upon in this family.  And as typical the speaker was condemned as weak and the tear was referred to as “poison.”  The ending of the poem is very touching because the speaker admits that she cannot handle the burden of the family tradition.  All three of these works share the same similar subject area of the next generation not fulfilling the expectations of previous generations.  And as a person who went outside of the family tradition, so to speak, I enjoy reading works with this basic topic.