“My Father’s Martial Art”A More Closer Look
.... Evidence of this love is shown by line 20 and 21: “Infrequently he taught me tricks and made me fight the best of all the village boys.” This line is deliberately placed at the end of this stanza. It also is filled with his father’s accomplishments in order to show that this speaker does have a respect and truly intimate love for his father even though the love given in return is all to infrequent. The overall tone of the poem is one of respect and is very matter of fact. The speaker only presents the information and allows the reader to come their own conclusions without any embellishments. Much time is spent on what the father can do in the eyes of his son. It says that he can “break into a pumpkin with his fingers” which, if really able to do this, shows the reader that the speaker looks up to his father for the many things he can do because of his martial art. It is obvious that the speaker never denies the fact that his father’s martial art allows him to do amazing things. The entire third stanza is given to support the power his father has been given through his studies. Even the second stanza, in the father’s point of view, gives direct proof that this art is a force which cannot compare with anything else. The tension does not lie here but rather it is the speaker’s need to get in touch with his father. The poem is focused on the speaker’s emotions and is what the poem is about so this is where the tension lays. Through the second stanza and the third stanza, the poem is focused on the father’s proud accomplishments. This initially makes the reader respect the father as well, but the true emotions come out by the use of the word “infrequently” in line 20. This becomes a very ambiguous word which complicates the tone of the poem. The meaning of this word is not clear but it allows the reader to think for the first time that the son feels some neglect from his father due to his martial art. Although the speaker’s complete emotions are restrained from the reader, making the true meaning of the poem ambiguous, it does remain like this until the end. There are plenty of reasons why the boy may resent his father. His father was never around for long periods of time and when he was his teachings were infrequent. It is an understandable emotion for the son to have some resentment towards his father and his martial art. One would guess that the point of view of the speaker would be somewhere far away from his father but it is not proven until line 22 when it is told that the speaker is standing “on a busy street.” He is standing on this busy street looking up to where his father sits alongside his master. It is then assumed that the distance between him and his father really does bother him because he is looking up to where he believes his father to be and is taking time to reflect on all that he has done to him. This point of view proves that there has always been tension between him and his father from the time he was a boy. However, in lines 24 and 25 there is reference made to shadows spreading across their faces as the smog between them deepens into a funeral pyre. Not only might the speaker and his father be separated temporarily as before in his life, but now that separation might be made permanent by death. This being the case, the tone of the speaker remains remarkably level, signaling that all he has been doing throughout the poem is reminiscing about all that his father has done in his life, in the eyes of his son, who did the chance to see him that much. In the final stanza the son is asking his father to come back to him in his own way of martial arts. The martial arts may be the one thing that separated them in life but the son wants him to come back by way of a “single Black Dragon Sweep” in death. No matter the neg...