Page 1 - LN- FATHER TO SON

FATHER TO SON BY: ELIZABETH JENNINGS

THEME: The poem is based on the concept of Generation Gap between parents and their
children. The father has his own set of beliefs and ideas while the son has turned into a
mature individual who wants to live life on his own terms. Both are unable to compromise
or reconcile with each other.

MAIN POINTS:
• The father is unhappy because there is lack of understanding between them owing to
communication gap.

• He is surprised at the fact that he knows nothing about his son though he has lived with
him since birth.

• He tries to assess the cause of their differences and refers to the past times to know at
what point this gap cropped up. He longs to rebuild their relationship from that point.
• The father thinks that his son is like a seed which he had sown on the land which was not
his.

• Now that the plant (son) has grown up, there is no sign of understanding between them.

• The son has grown up just as the father had planned. Yet the father cannot share what the
child loves.
• Father is unhappy that his son is trying to carve his own life, creating a world of his own.

• Father thinks that he would forgive his son for his mistakes if would come back just like
the prodigal son in the Bible.

• The father and son have no option but to live in the same world at the same time. • Both
want that the other should take initiative to solve the differences so that they can forgive
his mistakes.
POETIC DEVICES:

1. ALLITERATION: “Silence surrounds us”

2. ALLUSION: reference to “prodigal” son story of the Bible.

3. METAPHOR: “The seed I spent...”-seed refers to the son.

4. PERSONIFICATION: “Anger grows from grief”