Only through violence and rejection, he has learned, can one gain the upper hand in power relationships with others -- and also violence provides a way of alienating himself from others, as Paddy fears caring about other people too much because of the lessons he has unintentionally been taught by his family. Despite the love he evidently feels for his parents, because of his failed vigils to keep them together, eventually Paddy says that he wants to look at his father and feel nothing, and says that his brutal fights with other boys in the neighborhood are the most important things in his life, more than family relationships. Denied fulfillment and acceptance at home, even though his innate instinct is to love his parents, this instinct is ripped out of the boy by the circumstances of his life, and like Pearl's children, he tries to forget and emotionally deaden himself....
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