ipl-logo

Poem Analysis Of 'A Story' By Li-Young Lee

793 Words4 Pages

The poem “A Story” by Li-Young Lee depicts the complex relationship between a boy and his father when the boy asks his father for a story and he can’t come up with one. When you’re a parent your main focus is to make your child happy and to meet all the expectations your child meets. When you come to realize a certain expectation can’t satisfy the person you love your reaction should automatically be to question what would happen if you never end up satisfying them. When the father does this he realizes the outcome isn’t what he’d hope for. He then finally realizes that he still has time to meet that expectation and he isn’t being rushed. Through shifting points of view, a purposeful structure, and settle choices in diction the author adds …show more content…

Words like sad, baba, the man and the boy are meaningful to the story along with adding to the meaning behind this complex relationship. A childlike tone is observed when we see the words sad and baba being repeated throughout the poem. This story is about a son wanting a story from his father. Since that is the word choice will be a lot different than if a teenage boy asked for a story. The word sad in the poem has two purposes. One purpose is to leave open the man’s feelings so others can interpret his feelings and by using the word sad it helps the reader understand the mood of the poem. The son calls his father baba as if he sees his dad being some sort of entertainment, that is also why he is asking for a story. The word baba is also childlike to add to the childlike tone of the poem. Lastly, the two words the son and the man add to the complexity of the relationship. This shows that the man can’t picture himself being a father, especially after knowing he can’t meet the child’s expectation, but will always picture his son being a child in his eyes. In conclusion the author uses literary devices to add depth and emotion to the complex relationship between the two characters. He does this by changing the point of view throughout the poem from son to father. He uses a purposeful structure from present to future coming back to present to demonstrate with the complexity of the father's

Show More
Related
883 Words | 4 Pages

From beginning to end, the son calls his father “Baba” to show his affection and admiration. Despite the father’s inability to come up with a new story, the son still looks up to him. This affectionate term also contrasts with the father’s vision of the “boy packing his shirts [and] looking for his keys,” which accentuates the undying love between the father and son (15 & 16) . The father’s emotional “screams” also emphasize his fear of disappointing the son he loves so much (17). Despite the father’s agonizing visions, the son remains patient and continues to ask for a story, and their relationship remains “emotional” and “earthly”--nothing has changed (20-21).

Read More
863 Words | 4 Pages

This action shows that the boy obviously misses his father and wants him to come back. He had no one else and now is all alone in the world. The boy is sad because his father died, but also because of his desolation from life. The boy is so secluded from life, he weeps for his

Read More
440 Words | 2 Pages

The poem “Narrative” by Juliana Spahr is about a couple that goes to waterfall and accidently slip in. When they come up, they are underneath the waterfall. The poem is very in detail describing the couple slipping in and then felling the water fall on them from above. They do not want to let the water inside of them because it is very brackish. Spahr is very upfront with what the story is about, but it holds a deeper meaning once you examine what she is trying to convey.

Read More
1463 Words | 6 Pages

to still keep established pace and tone, which is that calm, disassociated mood. At this point the father, the reader might think, is a construction of the husband’s mind, because the husband had focused on “the idea of never seeing him again. . . .” which struck him the most out of this chance meeting, rather than on the present moment of seeing him (Forn 345). However surreal this may be in real life, the narrator manages to keep the same weight through the pacing in the story to give this story a certain realism through the husband’s

Read More
167 Words | 1 Pages

With the writer remembering him with the short time that he had with his father and didn’t understand how people who knew his father can talk to well of him. The writer knew his father as someone who wasn’t good at showing love to his own family. In addition,

Read More
887 Words | 4 Pages

These emotions affect his behaviours making him not act as his character did in the play. Think about who he is, what he’s gone through, and how others feel. His behaviours in the play and poem are polar opposite, creating a hole within the plot and its

Read More
726 Words | 3 Pages

The poem “One Boy Told Me” by Naomi Shihab Nye, was told by her son when he was two and three years of age. His comments, thoughts, and remarks were jotted down verbatim by Naomi and pieced together to create the one of a kind free verse poem. Nye assembled the phrases into individual stanza’s where they coherently flow to one another to illustrate the mind of a toddler. Wide ranges of emotions and personalities invoke the inner child and their curiosity. Overall, her son’s interpretations of his surroundings and understandings are represented in how the idioms expressed set the stage for intrusiveness, humor, and poetic devices to contribute to the overall meaning.

Read More
314 Words | 2 Pages

He begins the narrative by explaining how even at a young age, he differed from the other children, how he felt left out and alone. The “sorrow” in line 6 may be because of the loss of his family. He,

Read More
727 Words | 3 Pages

The Abuelito and The Grandfather The folk-tale “The Old Grandfather and His Little Grandson” and the poem “Abuelito Who” are two different pieces that end up having the same storyline and meaning behind it. The overall theme in them is about appreciation for your loved ones and that they should be treated properly and to make sure that they know they are loved by others. With both pieces, there are two characters who are ill-treated or don’t feel loved by some. Both the grandfather and abuelito have their grandchildren by their side showing them love. The stories begin, with both characters sick and mistreated, but towards the end, their grandchildren help others find the love for them and make others realize that they are family and that they should cherish the time they have together.

Read More
833 Words | 4 Pages

He writes Oskar and his father’s relationship so well, that readers would feel a profound connection by the second chapter. One of the ways he did this was the way he played with words and their simplicity. He wrote Oskar as a normal boy who needed assurance of his father being present. “Dad?”

Read More
303 Words | 2 Pages

In this poem, the diction that is used meant to evoke feelings, such as happiness, love, adoration and excitement. For instance, the statement “I loved you from the very start” and “Now, I loved you even more” that is seen in the first stanza clearly evokes love that is felt towards Rylee. Happiness is also evident in the poem and is felt through the statement, “As my mother enlighten me, a precious blessing is awaited” and “Gently smiling”, found in many verses. The word choice “enlighten” and “precious blessing” gives the reader a visual feeling of happiness that is felt upon knowing that a baby brother is coming. Diction is effectively used in this line because the reader will feel more emotion from the word “enlighten” and “precious blessing” rather than reading “As my mother told me that I will have a baby brother” which provides little emotion.

Read More
1033 Words | 5 Pages

One can feel the tension build as the baby is quiet in the beginning and by stanza number 26 the baby is “red- faced and screaming.” The reader immediately feels for the innocent child caught in the conflict spiraling out of control. The couple starts out fairly civil. The dialog between the man and woman is short and to the point. With the exception of the first two times the woman speaks to the man and once later by the man each utterance is only three to five words long.

Read More
1081 Words | 5 Pages

In the eighth poem, the speaker’s desire has reached unbearable levels. He has been suffering since his soul belonged to the beloved, whom he asks to judge if he really deserves such pain and to relieve him from his agony. The poem’s division into three sentences is underlined by the rhyme scheme and the shortness of each of the last verses of the two tercets that surround the rhyming couplet. In the first tercet, the speaker claims that it would destroy him if he could not touch the beloved’s body.

Read More
657 Words | 3 Pages

The man thinks he is way to young to lose his father. Due to that he pities himself since he is alone. His father left him and the speaker does not think he deserves that. Within Li-Young Lee’s poem “Eating Alone” many different poetic elements are used.

Read More
1245 Words | 5 Pages

“10...9...8...7...6...5...Boom” When I heard the gun shoot across the air, I knew it was time to abandon the starting line and begin the course. I already wasn’t feeling ready for this. My heart was pounding out of my chest. I kept pushing my way up the grassy hill. By the time I made it halfway, I could hardly breathe.

Read More

More about Poem Analysis Of 'A Story' By Li-Young Lee

Open Document