Father to Son
Class 11 English · Hornbill – Poems · Chapter 5
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The story in short
Elizabeth Jennings's poem voices the pain of a father who cannot understand or communicate with his grown son despite having lived together for years. The father confesses that, though they have shared the same house, he knows nothing of his son and can only try to build a relationship by remembering how the boy was when small. He questions whether he has "killed the seed" he spent or merely sown it in land that is the son's and none of his — they now speak "like strangers," with no sign of understanding between them. The father admits that, although the child was built to his own design, he cannot share what his son loves. Silence surrounds the two of them. The father wishes the son were like the prodigal who returns to his father's house and the home he knew, rather than going off to make his own separate world, and he would willingly forgive him and shape a new love out of sorrow. In the final stanza, both father and son live on the same earth yet remain unable to understand each other, and the father cannot grasp why anger grows out of his grief. The poem ends with father and son each putting out "an empty hand," longing for something to forgive — a moving image of the universal gulf and yearning between generations.
Father to Son
Characters & key ideas
Generation gapthe lack of understanding between father and son the poem laments.
Prodigalthe son who leaves home; the father wishes his son would return like the prodigal.
Estrangementthe emotional distance that makes them "speak like strangers."
Silencethe absence of communication that "surrounds" father and son.
Empty handthe closing image of both reaching out, longing for reconciliation.
Universal experiencethe gulf between generations that the poem presents as common to all.
Extra questions & answers (board-style)
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Who wrote the poem "Father to Son"?