Fathers preying on sons in literature

"A Tragedy of Two Ambitions" by Thomas Hardy (1888)

An alcoholic mill-wright wastes the money which his wife had painstakingly saved for their sons' higher education, after her death. But the sons, by hard work, educate themselves & also their sister to be a lady. But their father turns up with a slatternly wife just before his daughter's engagement to the village squire, threatening to disrupt, if he is not allowed into the family again. Soon afterwards, he falls into a weir & shouts for help, with the sons still within earshot.  But the brothers delay, knowing that all their hard won decent lives will end if he lives. 

His body was found six months later, after his daughter had married the squire. But the sons, though clergymen, are still guilt-ridden.

"Marali Mannige" by Shivarama Karanth (1941)

In this classic Kannada novel, Lakshmana, though married, becomes a wastrel & abandons his family, leaving them to fend for themselves as best as they could. His son Rama, with great difficulty & his mother's sacrifice, educates himself & gets a job as a hotel cashier. His father somehow gets to know this & starts frequenting it with his friends & leaving without paying. After sometime, Rama, realising that he has to pay his father's bills & deprive his mother of the money he is sending her, forbids the waiters from serving his father. His father, furious, kicks up a ruckus about "unfilial (!)" sons, & leaves.

"Bhitti" by S. L. Bhyrappa (1996)

As if an almost mirror image of the above, in  "Bhitti" the autobiography of S.L.Bhyrappa, the author's father, is a village accountant by profession. But through sheer laziness, becomes a vagabond (author's own word) but expects to be supported by his son & calls the whole village to support him! It is almost a relief to his children when he passes away.

Platonic relationships in Literature

Eugenie Grandet is the eponymous heroine of Balzac's famous novel. She, the daughter of a rich miser, falls in love with her cousin. He, however, after promising to marry her, leaves & on his return, (in debt), wants to marry someone else for his social advancement. Eugenie pays his debts & sets him free. On the advice of the local clergyman, she marries a local luminary, stipulating however that he not insist on his conjugal rights. He dies after a few years, leaving her a richer widow. Though in her thirties & still handsome, she leads the rest of her life  devoted to philanthropy.

Lucia, in the Mapp & Lucia set of novels by E. F. Benson, is married to "Pepino" & is attended by "Georgie" as knight errant. After Pepino's death, Lucia & Georgie decide to marry for social reasons only, They are still only middle aged but holding contemporary Freud's ideas in abhorrence, decide not to consummate their marriage.

Hoovaiah & Seeta in Kuvempu's "Kanooru Heggadithi", fall in love. But due to elders'  machinations, Seeta is married off to Hoovaiah's younger cousin. But the cousin commits suicide, due to a traumatic event in the family. Hoovaiah is of a spiritual disposition much like Alyosha in Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov", & has remained unmarried. Though Seeta, now widowed, lives in the same village, their earlier romance moves into a spiritual plane, not needing physical proximity. Both engage in social service in the village.

"World Elder Abuse Awareness Day - June 15"

It is the "new normal" to neglect elderly parents & consign them to old age homes. It may also be due to the fact that millennials are not well read enough to realise that there are better role models in literature.

In Ramayana, a teenager named Shravan Kumar appears, whose filial piety is exemplary. Dasharatha, Rama's father, kills him accidentally & is cursed by his grieving parents to die when separated from his son, Rama.

In Padma Purana, the story of Pundalik appears. Unlike Shravan Kumar, he was married, uxorious & neglected his parents at first. However, a Sage named Kukkuta, advised him to mend his ways. He did, to such an extent that when Krishna visited him, he asked him to wait till he finished serving his parents!

Even in Western literature, two novels stand out. In George Eliot's "Silas Marner", Eppie, abandoned by her rich father, is brought up by Silas. When her biological father later offers her wealth & status, she refuses & stays with Silas as a loving pillar of strength even after marrying a poor but good farmer.

In L. M. Montgomery's "Anne of Green Gables" Anne Shirley, an orphan, adopted by elderly siblings Matthew & Marilla, sacrifices her higher education to live with Marilla in her old age after Matthew's death. It should be noted that both Eppie & Anne are not even related by blood to the elderly people they choose to live with!