Father to Son (Post Reading activity)

Imagine you are a family therapist and the persona of the poem has consulted you. Write a report summarising the reasons why his relationship with his son is not smooth. What piece of advice could you give him?

Father to son

This poem shows the estrangement between a father and his adolescent son. It seems to be a dramatic monologue, as the persona -the father- is addressing someone who is not present and his words reveal different aspects of his own personality.

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

In the first stanza, the persona describes his relationship with his son: they are together and yet apart. The first line opens with the first person pronoun and finishes with the word “child”, which graphically shows the distance between them. Besides, the persona uses the phrase “this child” instead of “my son” to further emphasise their estrangement. It is as if the persona does not feel his son like his own but like someone else’s. In contrast, the words “together” and “same house” appear in the same stanza and suggest the opposite: their closeness. These set of words demonstrate that they are physically near but they cannot connect in an emotional way.

Father to Son (Pre-Reading Activity)

As a pre-reading activity, I asked my 16-year-old students: "What do adolescents expect from their parents so as to get on well with them?"

These were their answers: Privacy-independence-support-trust-money-freedom-understanding.

As we read the poem, we will ask ourselves if this is what the persona offers his son.