The story "My Father's Other Life" revealed the dark secretive life of a daughter's father who indulged in the recreation of using heroin. Even though his daughter was not aware of his addiction until the age of thirteen he still maintained as caring and loving person. This story can perfectly relate to the human behaviors seen in present society; that is every individual has a hidden secret or motive. Behind the warm smiles and delightful personalities that you see everyday in your friends, there is a gloomy side of the person that is concealed. This camouflage is not always necessarily bad, because people have the right to portray what is comfortable and pleasing to them in order to gain the respect and love of others'. Besides life is a mystery, leaving some things undiscovered makes life function more harmoniously, and furthermore it makes life more interesting.
             From the story, it is obvious that the father's other life is the result of an unloving childhood that he received from his mother. She was very neglectful to him, made him feel unimportant and did not serve a purpose in life. With an individual who was so emotionally distraught as the girl's father, he is bound to do something unethical or immoral in his later life. Even though the father's addiction was not exposed many years later, he still had good intentions toward his daughter. He loved her dearly and that was exemplified from the letters that he wrote to her during his trips, but more evident was that he was lonely. The drugs helped him avoid his problems, but the grief that he had suffered from his mother ate him up. He was able disguise his darker side behind this normal white middle-class man image that he personified, but in reality he found relief and acceptance in the drugs that he was consuming. The only time that he truly felt animated was when he was at the jazz club or at home listening to his music. Music was what he
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