Story By Li Young-Lee

Li Young-Lee’s poem, “A Story,” poignantly conveys a relationship between a father and son with the young boy’s desire for a story. The speaker portrays an emotional tone throughout the poem exemplifying the complexity of the relationship while the father cannot tell his son a story. Li Young-Lee applies shifting points of view, inverted structure, and religious allusions to show the elaborate relationship between the father and son.

Throughout the poem, the speaker alternates points of view to exaggerate the emotion that the father has for his son and how the son views his father. The father loves his son very much and looks into the future and he “screams” (17) for his son “don’t go!” (11). On the account of the father not being capable of coming up with a “new” (4) story but wants to tell an old one he believes that will lead to his son leaving home early. However, the son views his father as a “god” (18); that his father can and will do anything for him. Which is why he repeatedly asks his “Baba [for] a story” (19). Through these shifting points of view with the father, son, and

For example, the first sentence of the poem is “Sad is the man who is asked for a story and can’t come up with one” (1-2). This sentence adds effect to the complex relationship with the father and son, as well as set the tone of sadness. This inverted sentence adds effect of specifically telling the reader the father is sad because he cannot come up with new story. Which, also ties into the tone of sadness. The father is distressed throughout the entire poem showing how much he loves his son, but looks into another reality and sees his son leaving; therefore is unhappy. The inverted sentence in the beginning of the poem brings great effect into the tone of the poem proving how much the father fears losing his son and will be