– By Elizabeth Jennings
‘Father to Son’ describes the troubled relationship between a father and his son. The poem talks about generation-gap between the father and the son and voices the father’s pain and helplessness in failing to understand his child.
The father wants the same kind of bond with his son as he had when the son was a little child. But now, silence is what surrounds their relationship and there is a complete lack of communication between them. Though they have lived in the same house for years, they behave as strangers.
The father sees his son as the ‘the prodigal son’ who would soon return to his father’s house which was once his very own. The father is unable to understand why in his grief he becomes angry with his son.
As there is still love between both of them, they try to find out a way to resolve their differences but that seems futile. Elizabeth Jennings says that fathers and sons all over the world should learn to live on the same globe and same land. The poem talks about the universal problem – lack of communication and understanding.
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