Plenty of children go through life everyday with hostility in their household from their own parents. A Lot of people say it comes from, how each individual parent was raised during their own childhood. Whether that’s poverty, feeling in charge, or even just wanting to see your children succeed in life. I looked at two short stories today. One was by an author named Lucille Clifton called “ Forgiving My Father”, and the second one was called “ My Fathers, in Heaven, is Reading Out Loud” by Li-Young Lee. Both of these stories portray kinda a hard time as a daughter, or son living in a household that was hard to understand why things were done the way they had been done for so long, that’s why i named this piece “Forgiven But Never Forgotten”.
In the short story “ Forgiving My Father” by Lucille Clifton, talks about how this daughter went on living day by day with someone (her own dad) she really felt like owed her and her mom. In the text she says “ you are the pocket that was going to open and come up empty any friday”(lines 17-18). It seems like the daughter is upset that they were living in poverty, and that the little money that they did have was just spent on unnecessary things. And was not going towards the bills in the household. Then she goes on to say “ i wish you were rich so i could take it all and give the lady what was due but you were the son of a needy father, the father of a needy son. You gave her all you had which was nothing”.(lines10-14). In the text it shows that the daughter realized that his selfish ways were not all to just be put on his shoulders but was the example of how his own dad had represented his own family as a young kid himself. So from this moment on, she does not put all the blame on her father but slowly in a weird kind of feeling starts to forgive him. But just a pinch of forgiveness. In lines (20-23) the daughter says “daddy old pauper old prisoner, old dead man what am i doing here collecting? You lie side by side in debtors boxes and no accounting will open them up”. When the daughter says old prisoner, old dead man it almost seems as if she does not want anything else to do with her dad, just because she feels like she and her mom are meant to be owed something, that they had never got. So there is definitely some type of grudge there between the daughter and the father. In the second short story “ My Father, in Heaven, is Reading Out Loud” by Li-Young is talking about his father basically not understanding why he is so strict. In this story it shows that Lee’s father is very one with god. And also that he kinda looks up to god a whole lot in guiding his family in the right way. And at first Lee does not understand why he is so strict and making him do, what he called pointless things. In the text he says “ Because he made me recite a book a month. I forget …show more content…
I picked this argument because the father basically based everything off the bible and god 's beliefs. I think the father never was coming to try and hurt his family but to just better them, and unfortunately when he was trying to make his son better, the son saw it as just punishment. Because being a young kid you do not really see anything beneficial about reciting a book at the end of each month. You tend to think that someone that is just out to mentally hurt you. And at first that is exactly what Lee thought until he realized that he was just trying to make things as best as they could be. The father was just so deep embedded with his beliefs of god that he truly thought that this would be the key to being a better person. As Lee got older he realized that if his father did not do the things that he did then Lee would of turned out way different and probably would of had the most outlook of
In the short story “ Forgiving My Father” by Lucille Clifton, talks about how this daughter went on living day by day with someone (her own dad) she really felt like owed her and her mom. In the text she says “ you are the pocket that was going to open and come up empty any friday”(lines 17-18). It seems like the daughter is upset that they were living in poverty, and that the little money that they did have was just spent on unnecessary things. And was not going towards the bills in the household. Then she goes on to say “ i wish you were rich so i could take it all and give the lady what was due but you were the son of a needy father, the father of a needy son. You gave her all you had which was nothing”.(lines10-14). In the text it shows that the daughter realized that his selfish ways were not all to just be put on his shoulders but was the example of how his own dad had represented his own family as a young kid himself. So from this moment on, she does not put all the blame on her father but slowly in a weird kind of feeling starts to forgive him. But just a pinch of forgiveness. In lines (20-23) the daughter says “daddy old pauper old prisoner, old dead man what am i doing here collecting? You lie side by side in debtors boxes and no accounting will open them up”. When the daughter says old prisoner, old dead man it almost seems as if she does not want anything else to do with her dad, just because she feels like she and her mom are meant to be owed something, that they had never got. So there is definitely some type of grudge there between the daughter and the father. In the second short story “ My Father, in Heaven, is Reading Out Loud” by Li-Young is talking about his father basically not understanding why he is so strict. In this story it shows that Lee’s father is very one with god. And also that he kinda looks up to god a whole lot in guiding his family in the right way. And at first Lee does not understand why he is so strict and making him do, what he called pointless things. In the text he says “ Because he made me recite a book a month. I forget …show more content…
I picked this argument because the father basically based everything off the bible and god 's beliefs. I think the father never was coming to try and hurt his family but to just better them, and unfortunately when he was trying to make his son better, the son saw it as just punishment. Because being a young kid you do not really see anything beneficial about reciting a book at the end of each month. You tend to think that someone that is just out to mentally hurt you. And at first that is exactly what Lee thought until he realized that he was just trying to make things as best as they could be. The father was just so deep embedded with his beliefs of god that he truly thought that this would be the key to being a better person. As Lee got older he realized that if his father did not do the things that he did then Lee would of turned out way different and probably would of had the most outlook of