This article is about Father To Son Explanation and Father To Son Poetic Devices for Class 11. Students can take benefits from reading explanations of a poem and read poetic devices as it increases their literary understanding and critical thinking skills. Reading poems helps you understand language, symbols, and metaphors better. This makes you more aware of how artists choose their words, which improves your communication skills.
Table of Contents
Father To Son Explanation stanza- 1
I do not understand this child
Though we have lived together now
In the same house for years. I know
Nothing of him, so try to build
Up a relationship from how
He was when small. Yet have I killed
Reference:- These lines have been taken from the poem “Father To Son” written by Elizabeth Jennings.
Context:- The poet wants to become closer to his son because even though they’ve lived together for a long time, he feels like he doesn’t really know him.
Explanation:- The father complains that he does not understand his child, his son, at all now. Though they have been living in the same house for years, he now does not know anything about him. He tries to make an effort to rebuild the same relationship with his son, as it was when his son was a child.
Father To Son Explanation stanza- 2
The seed I spent or sown it where
The land is his and none of mine?
We speak like strangers, there’s no sign
Of understanding in the air.
This child is built to my design
Yet what he loves I cannot share.
Reference:- These lines have been taken from the poem “Father To Son” composed by Elizabeth Jennings.
Context:- The father brought up his son the way he wanted, but the son turned out different, and now they don’t really understand each other.
Explanation:- The father had always wanted his son built as per his design, but the son went astray and became what he wanted. For the father, the son was his seed that he expected to grow and take branches under his shade, but now, he finds that his expectations from his son have all gone waste. They talk to each other like strangers; there seems to be no communication between them. They do not share their likes and dislikes now.
Father To Son Explanation stanza- 3
Silence surrounds us. I would have
Him prodigal, returning to
His father’s house, the home he knew,
Rather than see him make and move
His world. I would forgive him too,
Shaping from sorrow a new love.
Reference:- These lines have been taken from the poem “Father To Son” composed by Elizabeth Jennings.
Context:- The father is willing to tolerate his son’s extravagance and forgive him but in return he wants his son to return to his father’s house back.
Explanation:- Now silence total lack of communication exists between them. They have nothing to say to each other. The father’s greatest wish is for his son to be the prodigal son who will very soon return to his father’s house, the house which he always knew. The father would forgive him. He does not want his son to leave him alone and move away. He wants to rebuild a loving relationship with his son after the sorrow of silence between them.
Father To Son Explanation stanza- 4
Father and son, we both must live
On the same globe and the same land.
He speaks: I cannot understand
Myself, why anger grows from grief.
We each put out an empty hand,
Longing for something to forgive.
Reference:- These lines have been taken from the poem “Father To Son” composed by Elizabeth Jennings.
Context:- In these lines, the father reveals his own shortcoming of being angry and is also ready for forgiveness and wants to build a cordial relationship with his son.
Explanation:- The father and the son will live in the same house, in the same world, but as strangers. What the son says, the father does not understand. His sorrow makes him feel angry. They both stretch hands towards each other, both want to forgive, but ironically, both of them do not make the first move. Read– Father To Son Summary and Central Idea
Father To Son Poetic Devices
1. Metaphor
Yet have I killed
The seed I spent or sown it where
The land is his and none of mine?
The words ‘seed’, ‘sown’, and ‘land’ are metaphors for the father’s efforts that he made to build a loving relationship with his son and the son’s heart respectively.
2. Alliteration
Ex- The seed I spent or sown it where
Ex- Silence surrounds us’, Shaping from sorrow
3. Simile
Ex-We speak like strangers
4. Rhyme scheme
abbaba cddcdc efgefh ijjhji
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