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Recently, I have been watching the The Five television show. It is about a missing boy, and then suddenly his DNA came out from a crime scene. This kid's parents have waited long time for him: his mother always thought that her son would come back one day, but the dad didn't think like that.

There was dialog saying ''Give myself that hope only to have it dragged away?''
What does he mean by that?

Full dialog:

1st son: Jessy is alive.

Mother: I told you. I knew he was alive.

Father: It's a mistake.

Mother: Accept it.

Father: Accept that he is alive? Give myself that hope, only to have it dragged away?

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    [Recently, I've been watching]. Can you please clean up your spelling and capital letters? Otherwise, it's looks like text messaging of the worst kind. Thanks. :)
    – Lambie
    Commented Feb 28, 2022 at 15:54
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    Also, we don't usually separate the name of the speaker from the speech with a colon AND a dash like :-. Just a colon is the usual way to do it.
    – stangdon
    Commented Feb 28, 2022 at 15:58
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    Dad means "Am I going to allow myself to hope that he is still alive, only to have that hope taken away again?"
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Feb 28, 2022 at 16:33

2 Answers 2

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"dragged away" in this context just means "taken away," but the word choice implies the rough or intense nature of the subject. Having your hope taken away is often a tough or heartbreaking experience especially with serious matters, so using "dragged away" is an option when wanting to hint toward the severity. Since this example seems to involve life and death, the speaker is likely harshly impacted by the stripping of hope, so just saying "to have it (hope) taken away" is less indicative of his emotions than "dragged away."

A similar phrase that is commonly used in this context is "to have it (hope) ripped away." Here, ripped implies the harsh nature just as "dragged."

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In this context, give myself that hope, only to have it dragged away? means "what is the point in having hope, if it is all going lost?".

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