PUSHPALATA VIDYA MANDIR

CLASS XI - ENGLISH – HB 7. FATHER TO SON – POEM - NOTES

HB 7. FATHER TO SON

I. Answer the following questions:

1. Does the poem talk of an exclusively personal experience or is it fairly universal?
‘Generation gap’ as termed now, is a fairly universal phenomenon. Children in
their effort to keep abreast with changing values lose track of their roots. They
find the values, they inherit from their parents, overbearing. Parents are
protective and try to guard them from making mistakes. This leads to a clash of
ideologies.

2. How is the father’s helplessness brought out in the poem?

This poem is a lament of the father because the chasm between his son and him
has grown over the years. He recalls moments of his son as a child and laments
how he has become a stranger to him. Their preferences and ideologies have
alienated them. He wishes to rebuild their relationship and start afresh.

3. Identify the phrases and lines that indicate distance between father and son.
a) I do not understand this child
b) I know Nothing of him,
c) Yet have I killed
The seed I spent or sown it where
The land is his and none of mine?
d) We speak like strangers, there’s no sign
Of understanding in the air.
e) Yet what he loves I cannot share.
Silence surrounds us.
f) He speaks: I cannot understand
g) We each put out an empty hand

4. Does the poem have a consistent rhyme scheme?

Yes. abbaba.

5. What sort of father-son relationship has been depicted in the poem ‘Father to Son?
The poem depicts a father-son relationship which exists in name only. The two
have been living together in the same house for years. Even then the father does
not understand his son. He confesses that he knows nothing of his son. The bond
of affection between them lies broken. They have become formal just like
strangers. Although the son resembles his father physically, yet he had his own
vision, dreams and aspiration. He is not home bound and is not afraid to venture
forth. The protective father is willing to forgive him for incurring loss of material
wealth provided he returns home. The painful experience of lack of
communication fills the father with utter helplessness, anger and grief. His
efforts to restore the relationship fail as there is no response from the other side.

6. How far has the poet succeeded in transforming a purely personal matter to a
universal experience prevalent in modern times?
The poem begins on an autobiographical note. The speaker i.e., the father
recounts his own experience. He talks about the non-functional father-son
relationship. He neither understands his son nor knows anything about him. In
spite of living in the same house, the distance between father and son has
increased. There is lack of communication between them. They either talk like
strangers or silence surrounds them. The father is unable to share what the son
prefers to do. The distance has reached to sorrowful limit. Even then the father
is willing to shape a new love and build up a fresh relationship. His grief takes
the form of anger and they fail to reach any compromise. This maladjustment or
growing break-up of relationships is typical of the modern materialistic age.

7. What are the poetic devices you find in this poem?

Following literary devices/figures of speech have been used in the poem Father to
Son:
Metaphor: It is a poetic device used to make a comparison between two things
that aren’t alike but do have something in common. e.g. “The seed I spent or
sown it where The land is his and none of mine?’. Here seed and land refer to the
father’s efforts in growing up his son.
Simile: It is the device used to make comparison using “as” or “like”. e.g. “we
speak like strangers”.
Alliteration: It is the occurrence of the same sound at the beginning of adjacent
or closely connected words. e.g. “The seed I spent or sown it where”, “we speak
like strangers”, “Silence surrounds us.”, “father’s house, the home he knew”,
“anger grows from grief”.

II. Read the extracts and answer the following questions:

I. 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
1. Who is the “I” in these lines? Who is the “child”?
The father is referred to as the “I” in these lines. His son is the child.
2. What is his complaint?
His complaint is that he does not understand his son despite their living together.
3. What does he want to do now?
He now wants to build a relationship from the beginning.
4. What has he “killed”?
He has killed the connection or rapport between the father and son.

II. 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.
1. What has he “sown”?
He had nurtured the child who he compares to seeds, on love and
understanding.
2. What is the relationship between them like?
The father and son are like strangers.
3. What is lacking between the two?
Sharing and understanding is lacking between the two.
4. What can he not share?
The father cannot share his son’s opinion, and likes and dislikes.

III. 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.
1. Explain: “Silence surrounds us”.
There is no communication between the father and the son.
2. Explain: “I would have Him prodigal, returning to His father’s house.”
In the Bible, when the recklessly extravagant son returned, the father forgave
him his earlier sins as his coming home showed his regret. Similarly, the father
is prepared to forgive his son if he comes back to him.
3. Name the poetic device used in the line: “I would have Him prodigal, returning to
His father’s house.”
Allusion. The prodigal son alludes to the parable of the Prodigal Son from the
Bible.
4. What would the father not want the son to do?
The father would not want the son to move away into his own world.
5. What would the father do if the son came back to him?
The father would forgive his son and from their sorrow love would arise again.

IV. 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.
1. How do they live?
They live in the same place, yet are so distant.
2. What emotions does the father feel?
The father is aggrieved and angry at the son distancing himself.
3. Explain: “We each put out an empty hand”.
The father and son try to reach out to each other but in vain.
4. What do they yearn for?
They long to forgive and forget the past and start afresh.

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CHECKED & APPROVED BY

MS. BLISS BERNARD