The presence of complex relationships in a person’s life will often have great impacts on his or her actions. The nature of these impacts can either have a negative or positive result in the end. In Lucille Clifton’s poem entitled “forgiving my father,” readers discover the speaker’s parents have both passed away; however, the narrator is haunted by memories of dissension between her and her father. These memories force the narrator to keep her father accountable for his wrongdoings without granting him forgiveness for his shortcomings. In the last stanza of the poem, the narrator realizes dwelling on her late father’s wrongdoings will not allow her to rid of her bitterness; furthermore, she finally concedes forgiveness. At first glance, superficial …show more content…
readers may initially assume that the speaker possesses extreme hatred towards her father due to his failure to repay his debts, but a thorough analysis of the work reveals the speaker’s internal battle of hatred is truly the regret that stems from her own inability to forgive her late father. Throughout the poem, readers are presented with the narrator’s ongoing hatred towards her father. The speaker utilizes harsh words to describe her father, such as “old man” (5), “old lecher” (9), and “pauper… prisoner… dead man” (20) in order to emphasize her bitterness for his inability to repay monetary debts that ultimately lead to her mother’s death. The reason the speaker employs these derogatory names can be argued that her father fails to properly provide for his own family when she declares, “I wish you were rich so I could… /give the lady what she was due” (10-11). The relationship between this quote and the epithets she assigns to her father help explain to frivolous readers that the names are accentuating his wrongdoings and shortcomings in terms of being a provider for his family. Although the debts have a literal meaning, they also could be disputed to be a metaphor the narrator employs to symbolize a debt of love and affection. Due to the father’s insufficient ability to provide proper funds to sustain his family, the narrator unveils her genuine feelings that her father emotionally neglects her when she states, “There is no more time for you. There will/never be time” (8-9). This quote initially appears to be referencing that her father has exhausted his chances of repaying his dues, but with further investigation, the speaker is implying that her father had a debt of love to repay to his family. The father does not repay this debt of love, which is why the speaker is emphasizing that there is not enough time for the debt to be repaid. In summation of these descriptions, the speaker’s hatred for her father is rooted much deeper than his failure to repay debts due to not only neglect she endured, but also to her hidden regret. While the hateful diction forces readers to question why the poem is entitled “forgiving my father,” there are references within the work that allow readers to understand that the narrator is experiencing regret for not forgiving her father before his death.
The poem is written completely in lowercase letters, which makes the harsh diction appear less severe; furthermore, the speaker’s regret is illuminated although she is attempting to keep it concealed. The employment of the lowercase letters effectively demonstrates the ambiguity of the work itself which raises questions about how the narrator truly feels, which is regret. This theme is also highlighted when the narrator states, “You have stood in my dreams/like a ghost” (3-4). This quote further exemplifies the sensation of regret because a ghost is unable to pay his earthly debts, and this haunting brings guilt and regret to the forefront of the speaker’s mind. The ghost not only symbolizes regret, but the worriment that the speaker endures due to the unpaid debts and lack of care during her childhood. While regret has grown from the hatred the narrator has for her father, she begins to understand that dwelling on her father’s wrongdoings will not change the …show more content…
past. At the end of the poem, the speaker begins to slowly forgive her financially irresponsible and emotionally abusive father.
Although she may not feel that her father deserves to be forgiven, she evidently attempts to mature from hatred to forgiveness. This becomes clear when she asks, “What am I doing here collecting?” (21). Realizing that her late father is unable to repay his dues, the speaker asks this question to herself. This question signifies her newfound realization that dwelling over the past will forbid her from encountering peace with what her father did to the family. She begins to realize that after all these years of “collecting” and remaining empty-handed, the best step in the process of letting go is to simply forgive and forget her deceased father’s shortcomings (21). Moreover, the speaker finally answers her question when she states in the final stanza, “And no accounting will open them up” (22). This is when readers discover that the speaker is acknowledging her forgiveness because she can no longer keep her father accountable for his inability to pay his dues. Although this forgiveness may be a stretch to frivolous readers, the title suggests that this forgiveness must take place in the
poem. “Forgiving my father” by Lucille Clifton logically demonstrates how close relationships have different effects on the way people live their life. The narrator depicts this truth through her internal battle of hatred that journeys from regret to forgiveness of her father’s transgressions, which is a testament to her development throughout the poem. Although the regret is not completely obvious, the speaker suggests otherwise through metaphors which readers to delve into their true meanings. When one considers the harsh diction, the lowercase font, and the ambiguous title of the poem, it can be understood that the speaker is concealing her true regret for not forgiving her father before his death.
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
From the combination of enjambed and end-stopped lines, the reader almost physically feels the emphasis on certain lines, but also feels confusion where a line does not end. Although the poem lacks a rhyme scheme, lines like “…not long after the disaster / as our train was passing Astor” and “…my eyes and ears…I couldn't think or hear,” display internal rhyme. The tone of the narrator changes multiple times throughout the poem. It begins with a seemingly sad train ride, but quickly escalates when “a girl came flying down the aisle.” During the grand entrance, imagery helps show the importance of the girl and how her visit took place in a short period of time. After the girl’s entrance, the narrator describes the girl as a “spector,” or ghost-like figure in a calm, but confused tone. The turning point of the poem occurs when the girl “stopped for me [the narrator]” and then “we [the girl and the narrator] dove under the river.” The narrator speaks in a fast, hectic tone because the girl “squeez[ed] till the birds began to stir” and causes her to not “think or hear / or breathe or see.” Then, the tone dramatically changes, and becomes calm when the narrator says, “so silently I thanked her,” showing the moment of
His outside actions of touching the wall and looking at all the names are causing him to react internally. He is remembering the past and is attempting to suppress the emotions that are rising within him. The first two lines of the poem set the mood of fear and gloom which is constant throughout the remainder of the poem. The word choice of "black" to describe the speaker's face can convey several messages (502). The most obvious meaning ... ...
The piece itself is about a man (the narrator) who commits some form of domestic violence against his partner/wife, and is begging for forgiveness - asking God to understand that he didn’t truly mean to hurt her and that he is sorry, ‘I’m just a soul whose intentions are
Toni Morrison’s “Recitatif” and A.S. Byatt’s “The Thing in the Forest” are both focused on the intersections of childhood trauma, memory, and guilt, as well as how someone’s childhood can affect them through life. Each has its own idea of what effect the guilt might have on a person and how it can affect different people in different ways. “Recitatif” and “The Thing in the Forest” both revolve around the guilt and confusion that adults face when reflecting upon their childhood and wondering if their recollections are entirely accurate; however, one focuses on the difference it makes in otherwise parallel lives and the other focuses on the parallel it makes in otherwise different lives.
...ttachment or emotion. Again, Heaney repeats the use of a discourse marker, to highlight how vividly he remembers the terrible time “Next morning, I went up into the room”. In contrast to the rest of the poem, Heaney finally writes more personally, beginning with the personal pronoun “I”. He describes his memory with an atmosphere that is soft and peaceful “Snowdrops and Candles soothed the bedside” as opposed to the harsh and angry adjectives previously used such as “stanched” and “crying”. With this, Heaney is becoming more and more intimate with his time alone with his brother’s body, and can finally get peace of mind about the death, but still finding the inevitable sadness one feels with the loss of a loved one “A four foot box, a foot for every year”, indirectly telling the reader how young his brother was, and describing that how unfortunate the death was.
pity in the reader by reflecting on the traumatic childhood of her father, and establishes a cause
Through an intimate maternal bond, Michaels mother experiences the consequences of Michaels decisions, weakening her to a debilitating state of grief. “Once he belonged to me”; “He was ours,” the repetition of these inclusive statements indicates her fulfilment from protecting her son and inability to find value in life without him. Through the cyclical narrative structure, it is evident that the loss and grief felt by the mother is continual and indeterminable. Dawson reveals death can bring out weakness and anger in self and with others. The use of words with negative connotations towards the end of the story, “Lonely,” “cold,” “dead,” enforce the mother’s grief and regressing nature. Thus, people who find contentment through others, cannot find fulfilment without the presence of that individual.
Even with his prayer, and his wine-induced courage, the speaker still despairs. He compares himself to “the poor jerk who wanders out on air and then looks down” and “below his feet, he sees eternity,” when he realizes that “suddenly his shoes no longer work on nothingness” (5.12-15). It is as though he is submitting to the reality that, if he steps beyond the safe borders of the proven approaches to writing, there is no magic potion that will guarantee his success. Nevertheless, he appears to be willing to take his chances, and, ironically, he does so with this prayer, which is stylistically unconventional. In a desperate attempt to remind his readers that he was once considered a good writer in the event that this poem does not meet their traditional standards, he makes one final request: “As I fall past, remember me” (5.16).
The poem “Those Winter Sundays” displays a past relationship between a child and his father. Hayden makes use of past tense phrases such as “I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking” (6) to show the readers that the child is remembering certain events that took place in the past. Although the child’s father did not openly express his love towards him when he was growing up, the child now feels a great amount of guilt for never thanking his father for all the things he actually did for him and his family. This poem proves that love can come in more than one form, and it is not always a completely obvious act.
The poem starts out with the daughter 's visit to her father and demand for money; an old memory is haunting the daughter. feeding off her anger. The daughter calls the father "a ghost [who] stood in [her] dreams," indicating that he is dead and she is now reliving an unpleasant childhood memory as she stands in front of his
The speaker may have believed that her mother deserved way more than what she got from her father. What lead to the idea of bills being time was the energy the speaker was giving off. She made the readers look at her father as a bad man along with her. The speaker states, “ i wish you were rich so i could take it all and give the lady what she was due,” it appears the daughter wishes he had a lifetime supplies of time that she could take back and give it to her mother. She makes it seem as if it would only be for her mother but from how she sounds in the poem it could be for her a lot more than her mother. A father figure is supposed to love their child, confort his child when some jerk picks on them, or go out and build their daughter a treehouse to play in. Instead it seems as if her father betrayed her and her mother by cheating on them with other woman. This makes one feel rage because it makes them feel unwanted, worthless, empty or even unloved. A father's child should not feel that way. The speaker even makes a big statement not in the poem but an observation of the poem. If one pays attention one finds that there are no capital letters. It could possibly be that it was her way of showing that her forgiveness would not be given easily or truthfully. She would always have that loss of time deep down inside. The time her father
The consequences of the father's actions are put onto his children while he is able to leave without any suffering. While the father was alive he spent his money on prostitutes and alcohol. Hence, once he died the children were left with the financial hole he had dug himself in. Clifton comments that when the speaker “[came] / to the paying of the bills” (1-2) there was no money to pay his debts. The speaker is unable to forget what her father has done because the weight is still on her shoulders. Moreover, while the speaker’s father was spending his time with prostitutes, his children grew a deeper and deeper loathe against him. Forgetting the misery that the children’s father selfishness caused may be impossible, but forgiveness is
This change in tone echoes the emotions and mental state of the narrator. At the beginning of the poem, the narrator starts somewhat nervous. However, at the end, he is left insane and delusional. When he hears a knocking at the door, he logically pieces that it is most likely a visitor at the door.
Katherine Philips is desperately trying to renew her faith in life, but she is struggling to do so because of the death of her son. She is attempting to justify the loss of her child as a form of consolation, while keeping somewhat emotionally detached to the later death of her stepson in “In Memory of F.P.” The differing phrases, words, and language contrast the two elegies and emphasize the loss and pain in “Epitaph” while diminishing the pain in “Memory of FP.”