W. D. Ehrhart's Poem 'Sins Of The Father'

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Lesson Learned “Today my child came home from school in tears” is the start of one father’s epiphany (1). W. D. Ehrhart’s poem “Sins of the Father” recounts a daughter being taunted at school and her father’s recollections of doing the same in his childhood. It explores the feelings of both the bully and the victim. This poem creates situational irony by reversing the outcome of a biblical principle: The sins of the father are visited upon the child and a well-known Bible verse: “The son shall not suffer for the iniquity (sins) of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity (sins) of the son.” The poem does this by first focusing on what happened to the daughter, then relating the father’s sins, and finally, exploring the outcome from each of these events. The poem starts with the daughter. She comes home from school crying after being taunted by classmates about her clothing. (This has its own irony. No parent expects to dress their child in a way that results in them being teased). The father lists his daughter’s desirable qualities: “A decent child, lovely, bright, considerate” (6). The daughter’s valuable attributes are not enough …show more content…

“Now there’s nothing I can do but stand outside my daughter’s door listening to her cry herself to sleep” (20-22). The father empathizes with his daughter at this point. She was made to feel “as if the fault was hers” and she is helpless to remedy it (4). Likewise, the father does not think he can help remedy the situation for her either, since he has been a tormentor in the past and feels at fault for her being teased. While most parents would go talk to the school or call the bullies’ parents, he does not. The father’s anger and desire to make someone pay for making his daughter cry has dissolved into guilt. The father may not have seen himself as a bully as a child; he was just having some fun. Enduring the effects of bullying on his daughter lay that lie to

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