Forgiveness is a hard thing to do in some situations. Everyone has been in a situation in life where it’s hard to forgive someone who has done something to you. When looking at “Forgiving my Father” we can see, through the adjectives used to describe the father, that even though the narrator’s father is dead, it is still hard for her to forgive him. 

Throughout the poem the author uses various adjectives, all with negative connotation to describe her father. In the very first paragraph she only describes him twice. The first time she describes him can be overlooked because she doesn’t describe him like she does in the rest of the poem. The first time she describes him “like a ghost in her dreams”. This foreshadows that the father being described is actually dead. The second time she describes him, she describes as an “old man”. Yes, this could be because he’s old but it’s said with sarcasm and hostility. Most people whose father has just passed away wouldn’t describe them as “old”. The connotation that comes along with the world old isn’t a positive one or one used to describe the recent passing of a parent that was important to you. This shows that the narrator and her father didn’t have a close relationship. 

In the second paragraph the author uses the words lecher and liar to describe her father. A lecher is a womanier, so her using this word can show some underlying tension that she had with her father. This also describes the personality he had and how he treated women in general, including her and her mother. The second word she uses to describe him is liar. This shows somes of tension that the author had between her and her dad. Through out this paragraph she continues to use old with the words lecher and liar which continues the negative connotation used to describer her father. However, in this paragraph she calls her father “daddy” a couple of times. She does say this before calling him a lecher and a liar, but daddy brings more of a positive thought about someones dad and brings the child out in someone. Her calling him daddy shows that she didn’t really get to have a father throughout her childhood and is still holding on to that relationship that every child wants to have with their dad. The last times she describes her father she decribes him as an “old pauper, old prisoner, and an old dead man”. A pauper is a poor person, so to describe her father as this it makes you think was he doing something to make himself poor that causes her to describe him like this still with such hostility towards him? She then calls him a prisoner, I don’t think she means he literally was a prisoner and went to jail, but maybe a prisoner in his own life and his own mistakes which ties back to him being poor. Was he a gambler and a prisoner to this addiction? Or maybe even an alcoholic? These could be other reasons as to why she has this tension between her dad. That he was doing something to put the whole family in a financial burden that caused stressed for everyone. The last thing she says to describe him is “old dead man”, this is where you know for sure that she’s talking about her father who has passed away. 

Almost all of the words used to describe her father are used negatively to paint this image of a lousy Dad. If the author would have replaced these words with words with a positive connotation this whole poem would have a totally different meaning. If she described him as loving, or a hard worker, or trust worthy then the audience would get an image of this great dad who works hard for his family, and had a great relationship with his daughter. If the words had a positive connotation the poem would read more like a eulogy she would be reading at his funeral and she would sound like she already has forgiven her father. With the adjectives used and the negative connotation, it reads as she doesn’t even want to forgive her father. Even if the author stopped using the word old and said dear instead to describe her father it would read like he was someone close to her and was dear to her. The changing of the adjectives would change the mood of the poem, the tone, and suggest that they had a better relationship then the poem suggests right now.  

“Forgiving my Father” is about trying to forgive someone who has caused a lot of hurt in the authors life who is now passed away. This poem is easily relatable because we’ve all had someone do something to us that is hard to forgive. The adjectives that the author uses show just how hard it is for her to forgive her deceased father. The negative connotation shows how much she’s had built up against him and even how now that he’s passed away she still has things to forgive him for and how that’s still difficult for her to do. The author wants to forgive her father, but I think sometimes it’s easier to forget then forgive, but in this case she can’t do that considering he is passed away. The purpose of this poem is to show that forgiveness isn’t always easy and that it’s harder to forgive those closer to us like family. 
