
In Lucille Clifton “Forgiving My Father” the relationship between a family where a mother and daughter are resentful toward there father for the way he runs their household. For the most part in the poem the little girl seems to be completely on the side of her mother but shows a little anger toward both father and Mother for putting her in the middle of their problems she says speaking about her mother and father “were each of each others bad bargain”. She is trying to say that the the fact that their marriage was so bad is not to be solely blamed on either but that they were simply not rite for each other. Deep down the girl would really like to forgive her father but in the end she can’t brig herself to do so, her father has hurt her and her mother too much and now they are both gone she seems to almost blame their deaths on the father. She hated the way he abused them and couldn’t afford to support them. 

After reading this poem and researching Lucille Clifton, I found she is was an African-American poet who lived from 1936-2010. A lot of her poetry was focused on Family and female identity. Considering the time period and the hardship African-Americans were facing at the time makes since that she would write a poem like this. The father in the poem seems to have a lot of stress and built up anger, not directly focused at his family but it surely rubs off on them. This may be due to the way he was brought up by his father this is shown when she says “But you were the only son of a needy father”. This quote is also taking some of the blame off of her father, saying he couldn’t change the way he was raised. Because he came from a poor family and his father probably treated him poorly that is no reason for him to treat his family in the same way.

Throughout the poem there is a common theme of hinting at money such as “We have come over to pay the bills”, “But today is payday, payday you old man”, here she is talking not just about the money her father cannot give her but all the love and compassion that children need from their father but because that is not an option money is the next best thing. She also seems to bring up Friday a good amount, she says that payday is on Friday saying he “Comes up empty every friday”. This is Ironic to me due to the fact that her father has no money and most likely no job, she uses this as a way to mock her father and his poor ability to take care of his family. The idea of money plays a big role in this poem but it doesn’t seem that it is over the father not having any money, to my it is over the father not even making an attempt to make any money. This may have been a hard time for blacks in America but the idea to me is that a father should do everything in his power to provide for his family.

 One quote that really stood out to me and laid a lot of the groundwork and mood for the poem is when Clifton used the simile “All week he stood in my dreams like a ghost”, this may be due to the fact that her father has passed away but the quote and the tone of the whole poem makes me believe that she haunts him in her dreams the same way that she haunts her in real life. She is clearly scared from all the abuse that her and her mother went through and is relieved is is over but is still haunted by him in her dreams. It is clear here that hate is not the only emotion expressed by the little girl but there is also a large amount of fear to go along with the hate.

The main cause of the little girl’s anger toward her father is rooted in the way she treats their mother. She hates to see the way he abuses her and puts no effort into supporting them emotionally or financially as a family. She wants to take everything he has but he has nothing to take, but he has taken her mother from her and he has taken everything from her. She says ‘You have already given her all you had” meaning he may have tried his best and she is grateful for that its just that his best wasn’t good enough. 

The girl uses a lot of Imagery to portray her father including words” Daddy, old pauper, Old dead man”. The progression of these words shows to me that when she fists things of her father she doesn’t show much anger but as she begins to think of all the bad he has done she begins to hate him and even in the end being sort of happy that he is dead. She sees her father as a pathetic man who wasn’t big enough to care for his family. It is hard for children to see their parents go through hard times, she constantly had to watch bill collectors come to their house and watch her father have to beg for more time. This may have caused her to lose a great deal of respect for her father, or maybe she felt bad seeing her father beg for more time. It wasn’t as if when he got more time he would go out and get the money though, he would continue to come up short the following Friday. These missed bills would compile interest and the daughter began to realize that not only is the father not paying the bills but he is putting the whole family in worse debt, and now he is dead he has left it all on her shoulders.

Throughout the entire poem the speaker goes back and forth between blaming her father for the way their household was and then she seems to forgive him. She goes on rants listing all the things her father has done wrong to their family but then saying something along the lines of he couldn’t help it or that it was partially her mothers fault too. This shows that despite all the wrong that her father has done that he is still her father and deep down they do love each other. But even if there is love there is a strong hatred in the relationship, she despises how he couldn’t provide for his family and makes zero attempt to be there emotionally. As you can see from the moment you read the title “Forgiving my Father” that she is trying to forgive her father after his death but she cannot 100 percent justify his actions while he was living.