The poem "A Long Way Down" by Jason Reynolds shares stories of grief, loss, loyalty, and most importantly... family. Everyone has had their parents ask them "Who do you love more?" Mommy. Or Daddy. Having to choose between them is an extremely difficult decision; especially when you know your choice counts, and you aren't allowed to take it back. Individuals that have to make said decision often have a lasting impact on their emotional well being as well as their personal development, and how they function during their day to day lives. What if you make the wrong decision? What would’ve life been like if you chose differently? The Long Way Down touches on this subject. When we meet Dani, she and Will converse about what could happen if he misses and makes …show more content…
She asked, “Don’t matter.” (Reynolds 142,143). Dani is trying to make Will understand the consequences his actions could have. She wants him to realize that he could miss, and it could result in him harming someone else, or even himself. Dani knows what the outcome could be if he decides to go through with shooting Riggs, but Will doesn’t want to listen to her- he simply says “I won’t”. Will is acting tough, but he’s just a fifteen year old kid talking to himself in an elevator. Dani and Will’s “conversation” is similar to that of children in divorce who are forced to choose between which parent they want to be with. Side note: there’s almost never a definite answer, you choose who you feel the most bad for. As those children grow up, they think back upon the decision they were forced to make at such an early age and wonder how differently the outcome could’ve been if they had chosen differently. Some parents choose selfishness and spite. In an attempt to come out on top after their divorce, they try to get the kids. As they try to influence their child to choose them, they think they’re hurting their partner- but their child is who they hurt
In the poem ¨My Father¨ by Scott Hightower, the author describes a rather unstable relationship with his now deceased father. Scott describes his father as a mix of both amazing and atrocious traits. The father is described as someone who constantly contradicts himself through his actions. He is never in between but either loving and heroic or cold and passive. The relationship between Scott and his father is shown to be always changing depending on the father’s mood towards him. He sees his father as the reason he now does certain things he finds bad. But at the end of it all, he owes a great deal to his father. Scott expresses that despite his flaws, his father helped shape the man he is today. Hightower uses certain diction, style, and imagery to
The love one has for their family causes one to do anything to keep them out of harm, including taking the role of mother/father. Henry Lawson creates an image in his readers’ mind of the protagonist and all that she does for her
As Rob’s Dad gets to hear everything that Rob was trying to hold in, from the loss of his Mom. His Dad understands and has the same problem holding back his emotions of the loss of his wife, and how it impacts Robs
The simultaneous distance and closeness within the relationship between the father and the child are inevitable even in the most tragic and happy events in life. The poems “Not Bad, Dad, Not Bad” by Jan Heller Levi and “In the Well” by Andrew Hudgins are both about the closeness and distance in a father and child relationship. Both poems are written in first person, or in the child’s point of view to emphasize the thoughts of distance and the experience of childhood thinking to the readers. The poems both use similar literary devices such as motifs and imagery to illustrate and accentuate the ideas of each event that the narrator, a child, experiences. Similarities between both poems are the use of water as a motif of the barrier to being farther away from the father, and the use of different synonyms for the word, father, to indicate the amount of distance at each point in the poems. On the other hand, each poem takes its route of distance in completely opposite directions. “Not Bad, Dad, Not Bad” by Jan Heller Levi and “In the Well” by Andrew Hudgins accommodate the similarities for the use of the same motif, water, and the use of several synonyms for “dad” throughout the poems, but also differentiate because they proceed in opposite directions from the beginning to the end.
As humans, the journey through life means forming emotional attachments to each other. The first type of attachment we form is with our family. Eventually, people grow older and form emotional attachments to individuals outside the family, as friends. Then later in life, the possibility of developing romantic relationships can arise. However, each person at some point must face the reality that the people they have bonded with will depart this world. Similarly, one must also deal with the new assortment of emotions that follow after a passing or separation. In Lydia Davis’s poem “Head, Heart”, she depicts a conversation between a head and a grief-stricken heart, which represents the internal conflict between logic and emotion following a separation
If I were asked who the most precious people in my life are, I would undoubtedly answer: my family. They were the people whom I could lean on to matter what happens. Nonetheless, after overhearing my mother demanded a divorce, I could not love her as much as how I loved her once because she had crushed my belief on how perfect life was when I had a family. I felt as if she did not love me anymore. Poets like Philip Levine and Robert Hayden understand this feeling and depict it in their poems “What Work Is” and “Those Winter Sundays.” These poems convey how it feels like to not feel love from the family that should have loved us more than anything in the world. Yet, they also convey the reconciliation that these family members finally reach because the speakers can eventually see love, the fundamental component of every family in the world, which is always presence, indeed. Just like I finally comprehended the reason behind my mother’s decision was to protect me from living in poverty after my father lost his job.
How would you feel if you had family problems? In 1987, Sandra Cisneros released a novel called My Wicked, Wicked Ways. In the book, she has a poem also named “My Wicked, Wicked Ways.” The poem about the narrator looking at an old picture. The narrator then has flashbacks about his family. The narrator mentions what the father did, and how the mother reacted to the father’s actions. During the flashback, it is revealed that the father is cheating on his wife. The mother, gets mad at the father, but the father doesn’t stop. The mother ends up getting used to the father’s infidelity, and just lets it happen for the next few years. At the end of the flashback, the narrator speaks in a disappointed, but smug, tone about how he was the baby being held by the mother in the picture. After drawing out the connotations and the shifts of the poem, I can say the theme of this poem is “In society,
... overall themes, and the use of flashbacks. Both of the boys in these two poems reminisce on a past experience that they remember with their fathers. With both poems possessing strong sentimental tones, readers are shown how much of an impact a father can have on a child’s life. Clearly the two main characters experience very different past relationships with their fathers, but in the end they both come to realize the importance of having a father figure in their lives and how their experiences have impacted their futures.
Gaitskill’s “Tiny, Smiling Daddy” focuses on the father and his downward spiral of feeling further disconnected with his family, especially his lesbian daughter, whose article on father-daughter relationships stands as the catalyst for the father’s realization that he’d wronged his daughter and destroyed their relationship. Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” focuses on Mel and his attempt to define, compare, and contrast romantic love, while leaving him drunk and confused as he was before. While both of my stories explore how afflicted love traumatizes the psyche and seem to agree that love poses the greatest dilemma in life, and at the same time that it’s the most valued prospect of life, the two stories differ in that frustrated familial love causes Gaitskill's protagonist to become understandable and consequently evokes sympathy from the reader, but on the other hand frustrated romantic love does nothing for Carver's Protagonist, except keep him disconnected from his wife and leaving him unchanged, remaining static as a character and overall unlikable. In comparing “Tiny, Smiling Daddy” and “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”, together they suggest that familial love is more important than romantic love, which we relentlessly strive to achieve often forgetting that we’ll forever feel alone without familial love, arguably the origin of love itself.
There is a special bond between parents and children, but there is always uncertainty, whether it’s with the parents having to let go or the children, now adults, reminiscing on the times they had with their parents. The poem “To a Daughter Leaving Home” by Linda Pastan is a very emotional poem about what you can assume: a daughter leaving home. Then the poem “Alzheimer 's" by Kelly Cherry is about the poet’s father, a former professional musician who develops the disease. These are only two examples that show the ambivalence between the parents and the children.
there they are, the parents, helpless and lifeless in front of you. Minou, Cyrus’ Mother, describes the death of her Father as a deep stab, like a bullet in the heart that pierces the body deeply. The deaths of my Sister, of my Mother and my Father were like Minou’s Father’s death, deep, painful, sad. Then, the pain and sadness are gone. They remain a fond memory of the good things we did together.
Parents are the first contact and relationship and play an essential role on the child’s development. Their actions and demeanor have a heavy impact on the way their offspring will relate to others, and develop future relationships. In the poem “Elegy of My Father, Who Is Not Dead” Hudgins analyzes and interprets the relationship he has with his father throughout an elegy. He uses this as a way to revisit his faith and the connection it has to his father.
The author uses imagery, contrasting diction, tones, and symbols in the poem to show two very different sides of the parent-child relationship. The poem’s theme is that even though parents and teenagers may have their disagreements, there is still an underlying love that binds the family together and helps them bridge their gap that is between them.
At first the relationship between a father and his son can be perceived as a simple companionship. However, this bond can potentially evolve into more of a dynamic fitting relationship. In The Road The Man and his son have to depend on one another because they each hold a piece of each other. The Man holds his sons sense of adulthood while the son posses his father’s innocence. This reliance between the father and son create a relationship where they need each other in order to stay alive. “The boy was all that stood between him and death.” (McCarthy 29) It is evident that without a reason to live, in this case his son, The Man has no motivation to continue living his life. It essentially proves how the boy needs his father to love and protect him, while the father needs the boy to fuel ...
I never imagined love could be so complicated and tumultuous. Many children grow up with their parents as their role models. I was not one of those kids and often lived in shame because of my parents. My parent’s addiction to drugs and alcohol which were the focus of their life. Due to their addictions, many times I felt I was an afterthought and a burden.