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Essays written about forgiveness
Essays written about forgiveness
Essays written about forgiveness
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In “Forgiving my father” written by Lucille Clifton, she wrote the poem in first person perspective which in this case the daughter. It become obvious later on the poem when the daughter called her father “daddy old pauper old prisoner, old dead man”(Clifton 20). The speaker seems to have a hard time trying to forgive her father because of financial stability and the problems her father caused. Clifton was able to asserted the words bills, payday and also due to emphasize money as a metaphor throughout the poem. All of the financial metaphors and images inserted into clifton's poem were in order to see the vivid image of the speakers father. The speaker starts by being harsh on her father on a couple of stanzas. When we look at the first …show more content…
stanza the speaker is furious at her father by using the words “it’s payday, payday old man” (Clifton 5). This line indicates maybe her father had some financial problems, not proving to his family and cannot have more time.
The speakers father was not much involved in the speakers life. In fact he was always outsized in the speakers life bank account. The speakers father might be a huge disappointment to the speaker as a father. This might might be for several reasons. May be the father was abusive to his daughter as well as her mother, maybe he was a person who drink, or maybe her father is a gambler and that result his family to not have food to eat. This caused the speaker pain that she can’t forgive describing him as “debt” a debt that can never be paid of. Lastly the speaker at the end the speaker pointed out one last piece of financial metaphor. She stated that “what am i doing he collecting? You lie side by side in debtor’s boxes and no accounting will open them up” this particular line is significant money metaphor in the poem. In line 3 and 4 the speaker says “ all week you have….. Asking for more time” the speaker emphasizes “like a ghost” specifying the death of her father. She also indicated down in the second stanza her father's death stating that the time has passed to forgive her father. It is significant because it is where the speaker realized it is late to be angry at her father and those debts cannot be collected as her father
is dead. Throughout the poem the speaker calls her father “old man”(line5), “old lecher”(line 9), and furthermore “old lier”(line 10). This several names show that the daughter has no love or affection for her father as if she detached herself from his life. In line 5 and 6 of the first stanza “My mother’s hand opens in her early grave” (Clifton 6). Asserting that her mother died at a young age, most probably because her father was irresponsible financially. Further in line 10 and 11 the speaker says “ i wish you were rich so i could take it all and give the lady what she was due” in this two specific lines the daughter comes to collect what her dad owes her mother after he 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
The title of Lucille Clifton's poem, "forgiving my father", seems to be in sharp opposition with the poem itself. There seems to be no forgiveness, yet the title claims that it is there. The entire poem focuses on the debt of the author's father. "it is Friday." she says, "we have come to the paying of the bills." (1-2). But perhaps it doesn't necessarily mean that it is literally Friday, perhaps she just means it is the end, and maybe the debt isn't one of money, but of love. Clifton is using a monetary debt to symbolize a debt of love and affection. She uses this symbolism to show that by the end of the poem, she has forgiven her father, but it is not forgiveness as we would normally think of it.
Towards the climax of the passage, the young girl shares her perspective on her dad’s desire to help her achieve her academic goals. “Nothing’s more important than his books and vocabulary words. He might say I matter, but when he goes on a scavenger hunt for a book, I realize that I really don’t” (Lopez 26). This cite illustrates just how sightless the teenage narrator is because she fails to see that her father only left the dinner table to assist her and to do something generous, but from her perspective she takes it as her father abandoning her. I can infer that the child’s anger and feeling of not mattering, which led to her storming off to her room, could have easily been solved if she asked her father what his true intentions were in pushing Watership Down so hard during a nice family dinner. On the other hand, the dad in “Confetti Girl” simply doesn’t pay attention to his daughter’s feelings often enough, and that sets off a bomb of conflict in their relationship as well. At the end of the excerpt, the father stoops to find a book, but is so engrossed in his task that he practically treats his daughter as non-existent; she narrates the following emotion-filled line. “He doesn’t hear my angry, stomping footsteps” (Lopez 27). This cite portrays that the father is
Fulfilling the roles of both mother and breadwinner creates an assortment of reactions for the narrator. In the poem’s opening lines, she commences her day in the harried role as a mother, and with “too much to do,” (2) expresses her struggle with balancing priorities. After saying goodbye to her children she rushes out the door, transitioning from both, one role to the next, as well as, one emotion to another. As the day continues, when reflecting on
Stanza three again shows doubtfulness about the mother’s love. We see how the mother locks her child in because she fears the modern world. She sees the world as dangers and especially fears men. Her fear of men is emphasized by the italics used. In the final line of the stanza, the mother puts her son on a plastic pot. This is somewhat symbolic of the consumeristic society i.e. manufactured and cheap.
The poem is written in the father’s point of view; this gives insight of the father’s character and
...e another for support because of the parent/child role reversal in the home. The most mature and responsible people in the family were the children. However many times the children were left to their own devices to manage their lives, the children always welcomed Rex and Rose Mary back into their open hearts. This can be explained in part by a hidden rule of poverty being that people are possessions. In Ruby Payne’s A Framework for Understanding Poverty, she explains, “In poverty people are possessions, and people can rely only on each other” (Payne, p. 23). The Walls children relied on their parents to hold the family together, if only in a physical sense. Jeanette and her siblings forgave their irresponsible parents repeatedly. This teaches an important message to readers: by forgiving others you free yourself of festering anger, bitterness, and judgments.
While reading the poem the reader can imply that the father provides for his wife and son, but deals with the stress of having to work hard in a bad way. He may do what it takes to make sure his family is stable, but while doing so he is getting drunk and beating his son. For example, in lines 1 and 2, “The whisky on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy” symbolizes how much the father was drinking. He was drinking so much, the scent was too much to take. Lines 7 and 8, “My mother’s countenance, Could not unfrown itself.” This helps the reader understand the mother’s perspective on things. She is unhappy seeing what is going on which is why she is frowning. Although she never says anything it can be implied that because of the fact that the mother never speaks up just shows how scared she could be of her drunk husband. Lines 9 and 10, “The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle”, with this line the reader is able to see using imagery that the father is a hard worker because as said above his knuckle was battered. The reader can also take this in a different direction by saying that his hand was battered from beating his child as well. Lastly, lines 13 and 14, “You beat time on my head With a palm caked hard by dirt” As well as the quote above this quote shows that the father was beating his child with his dirty hand from all the work the father has
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
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.
As mentioned, the parents’ pains, negative emotions and hatred are presented in the first part. Even from the first few lines from the poem: “Ulcerated tooth keeps me...
In fact, the poem demonstrates how the daughter feels towards her father due to their socioeconomic status and the connection that exists within her family. Additionally, throughout the poem the daughter portrays a certain preference for her mother over the father – characterizing the father as irresponsible and “old liar” (10) for not providing enough income. Furthermore, the daughter continuously criticizes in a negative manner: “never be time enough daddy daddy old lecher / old liar. i wish you were rich so i could take it all” (9-10). On the first stanza, the daughter recognizes that “today is payday”, expecting anxiously the father to pay the bills due to the fact that, as described by the daughter, “all week you have stood in my dreams / like a ghost, asking for more time” (3-4); must be remembered that both parents are dead at that time, given that the speaker mentions “my mother’s hand opens in her early grave” (6) and “old dead man” (20). On the second stanza, the speaker portrays the resentfulness towards her father, seeing the mother as the victim “ i wish you were rich so i could take it all / and give the lady what she was due” (10-11). However, soon after, the speaker describes how the father comes from a low-income family as well and realizes that it was not completely his
Every Sunday the father would wake up in the “blueblack cold” and made “banked fires blaze.” In the morning he would experience the bitter cold. The cold was very dark, similar to the father’s personality. However, the cold can be contrasted to the ‘banked fires,” or warmth and light. The reader can see that the father has a harsh demeanor about him, like the cold, but is loving. The austerity of the father negatively affects the son, but as he matures he overcomes the obstacle. In the next stanzas the reader sees that the son wakes up in the “splinter, breaking” cold, but the father would tell the son when it’s acceptable to wake up. Once the “rooms were warm” the son would begin his day. The switch from cold to warm can be compared to when the son talks “indifferently” to his father. The reader is shown that both the father and son have obstacles standing in their way of seeing the love they have for each other. As the son grows, he begins to see that everything his father did was to show his love, and not just because the father is
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
There were three different tragedies that transpired throughout this poem. The burial of the child was first; second was the burial of the marriage and finally the most symbolic and ironic tragedy is the burial of the home. Because of unfortunate circumstances these three things became closely associated with the home being buried. All of these tragedies occurred as a result of the child’s burial. The couple’s marriage could not survive such an emotional loss. Therefore the marriage becomes buried. When the marriage became buried the home became its own burial spot for this family’s life.