Tuesday, February 16, 2016
Fathers- Grace Paley
In reading "Fathers," I was captured by Grace Paley's realization that fathers are becoming more "motherly." She references women's liberation and how men are lucky for their freedom being granted. It interested me that Paley brought up this topic in her poem. The syntax of "Fathers" initially confused me, but it successfully augmented the theme of the poem. The messy, jumbled ideas presented in the poem match the unstructured lines of the poem. Run-on sentences fail to separate thoughts and ideas in the poem just like no true structure was implemented to initiate this change in fathers. Nothing prepared this swing in society as nothing prepared the reader for the multiple swings in topic. The conclusion of the poem puzzles me. "Fathers" was presented in the text to have a "conclusion with a startling understatement," but I question whether it is an understatement. The true shock of the conclusion summits when Paley states that "old fathers...consider the eradication of the new fathering fathers (who are their sons)." Do the old men wish this because of their upbringing and experiences in "Army camps" and war time, or do they simply disapprove of their sons' techniques of parenting? Furthermore, if the sons must be eradicated "as well as the women and children," who do they allow? What end do the old men desire? I enjoyed the mystery and ambiguity of this poem, but its mystery perplexes me.
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I really enjoyed this poem, too. I found myself asking similar questions about the poem's end. It kind of reminded me of a bitter old man talking about how the "world's going to hell" with progressivism and such. But I also found myself thinking that maybe Paley was playing with irony here, having used the rest of the poem to highlight achievement and progress in society's understanding of gender roles. The ending is ironic because, really, it's the fathers' fathers "who will surely be in the way."
ReplyDeleteI feel like you did a way better job articulating how I feel about this poem.
ReplyDeleteI especially liked this piece actually. I liked the message that was trying to be conveyed about Fathers becoming more motherly because that's something I have noticed on my own in this generation. However the writing style was little misleading. It was hard to tell what was going on and a lot of what the author tried to say could have been misconstrued solely because of the lack of clarity in the writing.
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