Gleaning Rich Insights from Works of Literature Tackling Fatherhood Essay

exercise works of literature by different rootages on a uncouth topic broadens our understanding close to human nature, cultures and history. Poetry that expresses angsts and pangs, or animise the beauty or of things around us, in forceful talking to or elevated style uniform the lyric numbers, can be an en voluminousing run into. watch or reading a knead can likewise be an inspirational experience. Indeed, there is a variety of meanings, sentiments, and even moral lessons that lead to readers exploring poetry and play focal pointed on a central unifying theme.This paper presents six types of pay offhood types as gleaned from five dollar bill verses and unrivaled play (a) the grieving aim, (b) the despised father, (c) the unflagging but detached father, (d) the itinerant far-off dad, (e) the involved father, and (e) the deadbeat dad. The selected works of literature e really say aboutthing about the human experience, motivation, and condition, with special focus on the overwhelming father-child bind. While all of them are created in thought-provoking manner and are replete with extended language, taking the reader on a journey and letting motley insights linger in the memory, they differ in their approaches.In effect, the different perspectives on fatherhood are crystallized into an integrated idea with a richer context. On My First Son by Ben Jonson has an opening line that reflects a fathers deep melancholy and anguish as he mourns what to the highest degree people may consider to be their greatest loss the destruction of adepts own child. When Jonson writes, Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and enjoyment (Ciuraru 191), there is heartfelt grief as he shares a horrifying loss. The implement of the word thou, oftentimes used in formal spectral context as prayers, adds impact because it conjures an image of a father gainful his last respects to his young son.The last few lines which echo the poets relief that his son has e scaped the trials and tribulations of this world (Ciuraru 191) point to how the author attempts to ease his intense pain and reflects his acceptance of his sons fate as well. On the other hand, Daddy by Sylvia Plath speaks from a daughters point of view for a father who has passed a mode. It has a somber and phantasm mood and the signatures of intense hatred and betrayal are shown in the very(prenominal) selection of words and imagery.Perhaps no meter is as uttered and powerful as Sylvia Plaths Daddy, which describes an idealized yet oppressive father, one whom the speaker rejects with a resounding, forceful brutality (Ciuraru 14). Parental relations, as roughly psychoanalysts may confirm, carries over into ones adult relationships, and this was clearly the event with Sylvia Plath. During her childhood, she lost her father, Otto Plath, to complications from surgery keep companying a leg amputation (Martin, para. 1) and this, along with her memories of feeling smothered and b etrayed, appeared to have left an imprint on her.Plath uses metaphors, notably a shoe to describe her father, and herself as the foot that is in some way trapped in the shoe, to express comely how suffocated and oppressed she felt. As some(prenominal) who are familiar with Sylvia Plaths life would know, the talented writer had a tumultuous relationship with her poet-husband Ted Hughes, and personal jealousies, differences in American and British views of sexual activity roles, and a return of Sylvias depression complicated the Plath-Hughes marriage (Martin, para.8) and she makes references to how her very life was sucked out of her the way a vampire drinks the blood of its captive, in her poem. In the 15th stanza, she states If Ive killed one man, Ive killed two The vampire who said he was you And drank my blood for a year, (Barnet 703) There are more other figures of speech, including similes, rhyming and tone, that helpfully lend emphasis and effectively please readers to a t ime when people felt quite shackled by parental authority and were powerless to do something about it.Plaths poem ends with a sense of closure, nonetheless, reflecting her resolve to take matters into her own hands. As for Those pass Sundays by Robert Hayden, the specific use of figurative language effectively highlights the industrious but detached type of father that many of us may be familiar with. Upon reading the poem in its entirety, one senses a certain remoteness shown by the father, or as perceived by the son from his father.The commencement ceremony line in the second stanza, which says Id wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking creates a mental evidence in the readers mind, through poetical devices like frost and assonance or the use of long vowel sounds to slightly speechless down the poem for emphasis. The reader also senses that cold refers not just to the weather but to the feeling that envelops the son as he rouses himself from tranquillity and faces his f ather. Hayden also places specific words at the beginning of his lines to give it focus and importance.The very last line in the poem which describes love as being austere is an indirect acknowledgment that love dwells even in a home where the patriarch rules in an authoritarian or a cold, forbidding way. The very first stanza also reveals that the father is very hard work and sacrifices his own physical well-being for his familys sake, but gets no preference for his efforts and dogged determination to carry out his parental duties. Another poem, My sky pilot in the Navy A Childhood Memory by Judith Ortiz Cofer speaks of a daughters longing for a father who is busy working in distant shores.The reader gleans how the poets career Navy father requires him to be apart from his family for considerable lengths of time. As such, the speaker in the poem aptly phrases the love, intense longing, as well as pride for the traveling father who looked stiff and immaculate in the white cloth o f his succeed and a round cap on his head like a halo (Barnet 727) in such creative and vivid manner His homecomings were the verses we serene over the years making up the sirens poem that kept him coming back from the bellies of iron whalesand into our nights like the evening prayer. (Barnet 727) The authors use of simile, personification and metaphor, among other literary devices, added to delivering a poem with grace and impact. The poem, in effect, strikes a resonant chord among readers who, at some point in their live, have had to be apart from a love life father or father figure, and fully know what it is like to restrain their return. The poem, A Parental Ode to my Son, Aged Three Years and Five Months by Thomas Hood conveys the vulnerability of the new and involved father.This special father-child bond is written about only on few occasions by a handful of writers seeking to dwell on such topic. The first few lines of the poem, which contains metaphors, mirrors the unr estrained happiness and amusement of the father for his toddler. His lines, like gigabyte happy, happy elf Thou tiny image of myself Thou merry, express joy sprite (Klein 109) are punctuated by asides that let readers experience his joy. The poet also juxtaposes poetic verses with a very fatherly voice describing a much-loved child.Aside from the use of rhythm and rhyme, Thomas Hood likewise uses other figures of speech like similes and alliteration to express his terms of endearment for his young son. Another work of literature, the well-known Death of a Salesman by Arthur milling machine, has a common thread that ties it to the five poems explored in this paper, in that it revolves around the life and dreams of a main casing who happens to be a father. Willy Lohan, the salesman, represents the dog-tired father who has worked all his life to provide for his familys needs (Williams 51), and nurtures big dreams for his sons, but the demands of fatherhood have dead(p) him.Though his mental faculties appear to be failing him and one of his sons tends to peck him and finds him off-track, his all-consuming fatherly concern is unassailable. Referring to his son Biff, whom he mistakenly hopes will follow in his footsteps, Willy says, That boys going to be magnificent (Williams 79) reflecting a fathers bulky pride and rosy hopes for his son, even if he had been a bum for years. Readers of the play, with its timeless theme of reaching for ones dreams, will attest to the great impact of this piece of literature.As one of them said, Reading drama was far more enigmatic than reading prose apologue (Oates, par. 4). All the works of literature studied here contain immense value, not just for their stylistic accomplishments and the succinct voicing of themes that are unremarkably treated in traditional or melodramatic fashion without the rich context. Compared to the portrayal of fathers in other non-literary media like movies or television, poetry and plays affir m heavily on figurative language that help elevate the experience for readers, and underscore life lessons, while bringing to readers minds their own poignant family experiences.The language and literary devices contribute much to a broader understanding of the subject matter. Analyzing a group of poems and a play bordering on the same subject showed that assemblage different points of view or interpretations, reflecting various angles, leads to a clearer and more encompassing study.Works Cited Barnet, Sylvan, et al. An Introduction to Literature. 14th ed. New York Longman, 2005. Ciuraru, Carmela, ed. Poems About Fathers.. New York hit-or-miss House, Inc. , 2007. Klein, Patricia, ed. Treasury of Year-round Poems.New York Random House, Inc. , 2006. Martin Two Views of Plaths sprightliness and Careerby Linda Wagner-Martin and Anne Stevenson. Modern American Poetry Home. 1994. 11 whitethorn 2008 http//www. english. uiuc. edu/maps/poets/m_r/plath/twoviews. htm. Oates, Joyce Carol. Arthur Millers Death of a Salesman A Celebration. Weblog entry. Celestial horologe A Joyce Carol Oates Home Page. 11 May 2008 . Williams, Liza M. , and Kent Paul. Arthur Millers Death of a Salesman Book Notes. New York Barrons educational Series, 1984.