Clifton's Criticism Towards My Father

371 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Gender roles in english literature

mother even though he did not rarely had any money to give. Throughout the poem the daughter showed criticism towards her father. Throughout the poem words such as bills, payday, rich, pocket, do and accounting were used as other words to describe money as an extended metaphor in the poem. (Clifton, forgiving my father) Although the story was centered around forgiveness, money was still a large theme of the poem. It was made very clear that the major reason for the daughter despising her father was due to the low money he brought home to her and her mother. The daughter claimed that there will never be enough time for her father to pay all the debt he owed to his family. Poverty has played a major role in this particular story of a relationship

Show More
Related

  • Lee Little Father

    641 Words  | 2 Pages

    The speaker’s personal emotions emphasizes the poem’s theme since although his father is no longer with him in this world, the memory of his father will always live in his heart. Throughout the poem, Lee uses the sky, underground, and the heart to symbolize imagination, reality, and memory—emphasizing the poem’s theme of the remembrance of a loved one. Lee also uses repetition to convey the meaning of Little Father. The speaker repeatedly mentions “I buried my father…Since then…” This repetition displays the similarity in concepts, however the contrast in ideas. The first stanza focuses on the spiritual location of the speaker’s father, the second stanza focuses on the physical location of the father, and the third stanza focuses on the mental location of the speaker’s father. This allows the reader to understand and identify the shift in ideas between each stanza, and to connect these different ideas together—leading to the message of despite where the loved one is (spiritually or physically), they’ll always be in your heart. The usage of word choice also enables the reader to read in first person—the voice of the speaker. Reading in the voice of the speaker allows the reader to see in the perspective of the speaker and to connect with the speaker—understand

    Read More

  • Wood Butcher by Norman Hindley, Behind Grandma's House by Gary Soto, and Manners by Elizabeth Bishop

    965 Words  | 2 Pages

    Take note of how the father approached the mistakes made by his son. "I fouled up some screens once, …You broke them out with a chair" I feel showed the negative feeling I got when I read the poem. That also makes me believe that it was an apprenticeship. To me parents even if they get upset at something you do, don't go about things in that matter. The son was trying to learn something from his father and rather than explaining and showing the son how to do it correctly or the mistakes he made the father destroys the work. ...

    Read More

  • report on letters from a father

    1035 Words  | 3 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Li Young Lee Essay

    435 Words  | 1 Pages

    The subject in lees' poetry is based on his relationships with the people in his life, mainly his father. In many of his poems, Lees' demanding yet tender father is either the subject or in some way an influence seen in the poem. In the poem "Mnemonic", Lee writes about his father and his demanding yet tender ways. Two lines in the poem read, "My father loved me. So he spanked me, / It hurt him to do so. He did it daily." This type of relationship between father and son is common in American society and especially in Asian families. This commonality that Lee has with his readers allows the reader to further understand Lees' experience with his father, while also allowing them to re-experience their own. Poems like "The Gift", "Eating Together", and "A Story", are all prime examples of lees' writings about his preferred subject, his personal relationships. The first two poems, being about his experiences with his father with respect to other family members, and the later about his own experience as a father with his son.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of To A Daughter Leaving Home By Linda Pastan

    1095 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Analyzing Scott Hightower's '¨my Father'

    1367 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • My Papa's Waltz And The Ballad Of Birmingham Family Bonds

    1365 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Sestina For The Working Mother

    707 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Lucille Clifton Forgiving My Father Summary

    1071 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the poem,”forgiving my father,” by Lucille Clifton a relationship is being discussed between a daughter and a father. There seems to be some complications between the two. It appears to be more of an angry feeling rather than sympathy. Something seems to have happened between the speaker and her family, more specifically her father. For some reason the daughter, who is also the speaker in the poem described her father as an, “ old liar “. The statement made by the daughter, “payday,” could potentially be a substitution for time.

    Read More

  • Similarities Between The Kite Runner And Forgiving Our Fathers

    1050 Words  | 3 Pages

    A fatherly attribute is one of the most important positions of a child’s life. The novel and poem show the strained relationship of a father and a child. This novel corresponds to the poem “forgiving our fathers” by Dick Lourie, because of the absences of both their mothers and traits of a poorly influenced father; irrational, critical, and deceitful. It shows the complications of the child's and father’s relationship, but when they forgive their fathers, what do they have left? The fathers portrayed in The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and “forgiving our fathers” by Dick Lourie demonstrates the characteristics that influence their children, therefore, resulting their mentality.

    Read More

  • Relationship Between Father and Child in Not Bad, Dad, Not Bad by Jan Heller Levi and In the Well by Andrew Hudgins

    1572 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Parent and Son Relationship in one of Nye, Naomi Shihab´s Poems

    638 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Little Father By Li-Young Lee

    485 Words  | 1 Pages

    Although it may be debated, using symbols, word selection, and a form of structure, within Li-Young Lee’s poem “Little Father” assess’ the harsh realities of handling a family inconvenience.

    Read More

  • Louise Gluk's Poem 'First Memory'

    623 Words  | 2 Pages

    The poem “First Memory”, by Louise Glück, expresses the emotions of a daughter who has never understood what loving another person consists. The somber tone of the poem conveys the reader into understanding the narrator, the daughter, and her emotions towards her father. The daughter seems to be pained by her father’s lack of affection towards her, as shown in lines six through eight “I thought that pain meant I was not loved”, in her own perspective she felt that her father had not loved her enough to cancel out the pain that he had caused. The father of the speaker is the cause of her pain because she loves him enough that she failed to realize that to love one must endure pain. Based on the diction the reader can hypothesize that the speaker is not fond of her father, as shown in line two “I lived to revenge myself against my father.”.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Bad Parenting In King Lear

    1755 Words  | 4 Pages

    The tragedy King Lear by William Shakespeare ought to be seen as a lesson on what not to do as a parent. By picking favorites, King Lear and the Earl of Gloucester leave a lasting impact on their children 's psyche, ultimately leading to them committing horrible crimes. The rash judgments, violent reactions, and blindness of both Lear and Gloucester lead to both their and their children 's demise. As a result, all of the father-child relationships in the play begin to collapse.

    Read More

More about Clifton's Criticism Towards My Father

Open Document