"Father and son, we both must live /On the same globe and the same land,"
A line from the poem :Father to Son -by Elizabeth Jennings
A glorious future, the time would bring to mankind, when the parents and child would go hand in hand and live in the same globe and the same land.
About the poet
Elizabeth Jennings was an English poet. She was born on 18 July, 1926,Boston, United
Kingdom.
She died on 26 October,2001,Bampton, United Kingdom.
Elizabeth Jennings was the only woman in a group of poets dedicated in a trend of anti-romantic aesthetic in poetry which was known as The Movement. The other poets were with her, Philip Larkin, Kingsley, Amis and Jhon Gunn. Jennings was a lyric poet and excelled in simplicity in metre and rhyme in her traditional,objective and plainspoken style of poems.
Elizabeth Jennings had her education at Oxford High School and St. Anne's College, Oxford.
She had published 26 books on poetry in her life-time. Jennings was not secured with financial position and suffered from severe psychological problems from her very childhood.In her literary work there is an intense shadow of her personal suffering though not explicitly of autobiographical.
Jennings had to undergo severe difficulties in keeping balance between her practical career of life and her well being of health and mind. In 1992 when she was invited to accept the honour from the Queen, she wore a knitted hat, duffle Coat and canvass shoes, and she was named as bag- lady of the sonnets.
Elizabeth Jennings was the prominent poet of the second half of the twentieth century of England.
Due to her immense poverty she had suffered a lot, for which she was nick-named as bag-lady, colloquially.
Her poems were published in various journals such as in Oxford Poetry, New English Weekly, The Spectator, Outposts and Poetry Review.
She was influenced by the poets like, Hopkins, Auden, Graves and Muir.
Jennings second book was published in 1992 "A Way of Looking", won Somerset Maugham award, which was a turning point in her life. The prize-money enabled her to live in Rome for three months.
Jennings was a devout Roman Catholic.Jennings was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Divinity from Darham University shortly before her death. she died in October of 2001.
Summary of the poem"Father to Son"
Stanza 1
"I do not understand this child".
The child is like a stranger for the father:
The poem is written in a subjective mood, explaining by a father, his deep love and anguish for his son whose world, now is different from him.Though the father and son are living in the same house under the same roof for years both they are unable to converse and understand each other. So the father says that he speaks with his son like a stranger.
Father is expressing his helplessness.
The father is expressing his extreme helplessness because in their relationship something is lacking that they can't communicate with each other normally and so there exists minimal interactions between them. He lives mentally in a different world with his own interests and ideologies which the father couldn't accept or compromise with. The son doesn't want to walk along with father because he has no understanding with his father.Therefore a is gap occurs in their relationships. Both the father and son suffers for that.
"I know nothing of him, "
Both the father and son lives in two different world with their own whims and interests. Father don't want to compromise with his son ways of living which is influenced by modern age. The son is influenced by thoughts and cultures of the modern times. The son develops a different attitude towards his life rather than developing a resemblance with his father.
The father is confessing:
"Yet have I killed"
The father is constantly trying to build up a relationship with his son like the relationship which they both enjoyed in the past when his son was a small kid. But the father is failed because he can't accept his son's likes and dislikes. Therefore a gap Or vaccum is created in their relationship because both they are unable to understand each other's world.
The son, after becoming an adult developed to be a seperate individual with individual interest and thoughts. He is unable to go hand in hand with his father in some matters, as the time has brought changes to various things.
Stanza 2
"The seed I spent or sown it where
The land is his and none of mine? "
The poet here inputs the image of a gardener as an effective poetic device to bring out the father's helplessness in more clear way.
The father had invested all his love and support in upbringing his child as a individual like him. The 'seed' here implies the father's sacrifices, love and support in upbringing hs child to a man like him.
"The land is his and none of mine? "
The son doesn't resemble to his father by character. He develops to be a different individual.Because his thoughts and ideals doesn't align to his father. His son has created a seperate land by his own individualistic character. He can't compromise his own ideals with his father.
So the father confesses that both of them speaks like a stranger because in their relationship. There is no mutual understanding and mutual respect for each other's opinions and views.
"there is no sign of understanding in the air."
There is no environment of mutual understanding and mutual respect for each other in that home.
"This child is built to my design
Yet what he loves I cannot share."
The father says he has brought up his child with his own culture. Like an architect designes a house or a plant the father has brought up his son according to his own desire to see him grow like him. But after becoming an adult the son developed different cultures from his father. The father neither loves nor shares anything with his son's cultures. The father is unable to acknowledge his son's thoughts and his ways of living. And the son has no respect for his father's thoughts and ideals. It is, because of the lack of understanding between the two , there arises a huge vaccum in their relationship.
Stanza 3
"Silence surrounds us."
The father and the son, both are unable to talk and share any emotion with each other. Both they are living in the two seperate world with their own egos, respectively.
"I would have Him prodigal, "
The father here considers his son as the Prodigal Son, which is one of the parables (Luke :15-11-32) from Bible, is important for Jesus's teaching to his disciples.
Meaning :Prodigal
A person who spends money recklessly,
spending money in a wasteful way, Spendthrift,
spending money extravagantly.
The Parable of the Prodigal Son:
According to the Bible (Luke 15:11-32) a man has two sons.The younger son asks his father for his inheritance. Father agreed to share him his part, as an heir. The son moved out from his father and spend all the money extravagantly, and became penniless at last. At last he realised his fault and returned to his father and asked him to forgive his sin. The father welcomed him by forgiving him and accepted him to live with him as before.
Significance of the Biblical reference of the prodigal son:
It is an important parable in the Gospel of Luke(15:11-32) for Jesus's teaching of His mercy, grace and His desire for relationship.
The father in the poem wants to forgive his son like the prodigal son.
The father doesn't want his son to move and make his different world.
Like Jesus the Father, the father in this poem loves his son unconditionally. Like Jesus's mercy and grace the father in the poem would forgive his son when he would come to him with repentance.
"Shaping from sorrow a new love"
The father is eagerly waiting to renew his relationship with his son and wishes his son would come to him with repentance.
Shaping -to rebuild or reunion
Sorrow-repentance, confession
new love-new relationship.
Stanza 4
In this stanza, the father is very assertive that with his son they must live in the same world by following the same ideology. The father is insisting "On the same globe" and "the same land", which is a positive faith of the father regarding his ability to renew his relationship with his son as well as his eagerness in forgiving his son and in accepting his son as he is now.
But, the father expresses his utmost grief that he is unable to understand what his son speaks to him. The poet is expressing the father's helplessness in a vivid way that the father's shortcomings in character which prevents him to understand and accept his son in his own ways.
Father's impracticability to compromise with son makes him sad. On the other hand his son also speaks turns to be impractical. Because in both of their approach something is lacking that is their mutual understanding and mutual respect.
"We each put out an empty hand,
Longing for something to forgive. "
Both the father and son are eager to come into close to compromise, but both they are stretching an empty hand, for which they fails.
"Longing for something"
Both the father and son are searching for some excuse to forgive each other.
But the scene continues. The poet ends her poem in a sense of open ending.
Theme of the poem:
The poet deals with the theme of a general one, which is universal also,is the theme of generation gap between two generations and it's reasons and the ways to eliminate it .
The poet presents us a father who is in deep anguish, because he has no communication with his son in that sense that he can't understand his son's ways of thinking and his ways of living his life.
The father is in deep agony that he had brought up his son with all his love and values but his son develops to be a different one from him in thoughts and values.
The father is unable to accept his son naturally , who develops his character influenced by the values of modern times. The father is also confessing his fault in character.
The father and son both are realising their drawbacks in their character that they have no mutual respect and understanding for each other. They are approaching with their empty hands and they fails to come closer and the gap continues to last.
The poetic devices used in the poem:
The poet uses certain poetic devices to create a deeper sense of meaning.
Metaphor:
In this poem certain comparisons are made on the basis of the sense or quality.
In the first stanza the word "killed" Is used to mean the destruction of a relationship which is alike the killing a life.
In the stanza 2 the application of certain words in lines:seed, spent, sown are used as metaphor. "Seed" here compares with the values and ideals. The word "spent"is compared with the sacrifices a father does in upbringing a child. The word "swon" Is metaphorically means giving value learning in upbringing his child.
Alliteration:
In the second stanza the repetition of consonant in these words-"seed that I spent or swon. "
Speak like strangers
Silence Surrounds us
Simile:
"We speak like strangers"
The conversations of father and son is like the conversations like strangers.
The rhyme scheme of the poem:
The poem has a consistent rhyme scheme. In each six line stanzas a particular rhyme- scheme is followed in four stanzas. The rhyme -scheme of the poem is abba, ba is followed in four stanzas.
The rhyme-scheme in stanza 1-(the rhyming words of the each line)
child-a
now-b
Know-b
build-a
how-b
killed-a
The same rhyme scheme is continuing in the last three stanzas.
Major questions:
1.Does the poem talk of an exclusively personal experience or is it fairly universal?
Answer:The poet talks of an exclusively personal experience though it has an universal appeal. The father's deep anguish and mental seperation with his prodigal son, his willing to forgive his fault and his desire to build a strong relationship with his son are common in all parents of the world and will occur in every coming generation.
The problem of generation gap occurs commonly in all the parents due to their inability to accept the changes brought by modern times naturally to their son's character though, quite against their cultures and ideologies
Elizabeth's poem relates about a father who is stoic in nature and remains static in a particular point. The father is indulgent, though forgiving and merciful, his stoicism doesn't help him to recover his pungent relationship with his son.
The son is the product of the modern times though he is not developing a character of accepting his father, who is representing the elder generation, as naturally as what he is.
Both the father and son lacks something for which both of them are stretching their empty hand in vain and the problem of the generation gap continues to exist.
2.Identify the phrases and lines that indicate the distance between father and son.
Answer:The father's helplessness are brought out in many phrases throughout the poem.
In the stanza 1
"I do not understand this child"
"Yet have I killed"
In the stanza 2
"The land is his.... none of mine? "
"We speak like strangers, "
"This child is built to my design
Yet what he loves I cannot share. "
In the stanza 3
"Silence surrounds us"
"I would have Him prodigal"
"I would forgive him too, "
In the stanza 4
"He speaks:I cannot understand
Myself, why grows from grief."
"Longing for something to forgive. "
3.How is the father's helplessness brought out in the poem?
Answer:In the poem "Father to Son" the father's helplessness are brought out in a very vivid way.
In the stanza 1 the father mentions his son as "this child" Which is extremely pathetic. Thought he father and son lives together in the same house for many years the father "knows nothing of him".The father is pathetically expresses his wish to renew his relationship with his son as it was in his childhood days.
In the stanza 2 the father says that they are now speaking like strangers. The father expresses his deep anguish that his son whom he had brought up by investing his love and cultures, now becomes a individual different in views and ideologies from him. There is a generation gap occues in between them. They are unable to understand each other. The father had brought up his child according to his desire but his desires is being discarded by his son and he develops a new land for him.
In thestanza 3 the silence gripped in their environment as the father and son is unable to talk and share any emotion. The father feels helpless and wants his prodigal son to return to his home which he knows well and he is ready to forgive him . The father desires to rebuild a relationship with his son,by turning his repentance to a confession.
In the stanza 4 the father cries out helplessly for his own inability to understand his son and to extend his hand to build up a new relation with his son. The father is helpless as he says, "Father and son, we both must live On the same globe and the same land. " Both the father and son are wishing each other to forgive but they are looking for an excuse to go ahead.
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