The poem “forgiving my father” is about daughter that is mad at her father for all the bad things he put her family through. In order for her to forgive him she had to relieve the pain and anger she had towards her father. She can now forgive her father after getting past everything. The author is trying to paint a picture of her pain. The reader can feel her crying and it is an ongoing pain she had since she was young. She lost her dad and did not have a connection with her family. The poem shows how a father can affect a kid’s life. The way the poem is written makes the reader feel sorry for the daughter. Gilman uses the elements word choice, punctuation, rhythm and style to make the reader feel sorry for the daughter.  

The author uses punctuation to make reader for sorry for the daughter.  In the whole poem the author does not use capitalization because the daughter does not feel like the father is important. The father made the daughter feel so small that the lowercase letters symbolize she was small to him. The lower case letters shows the reader that the father caused the daughter to think she was not worth anything.  The author uses the question mark to point out that the daughter is questioning herself. In stanza III line 5 the daughter ask herself, “What am I doing here collecting?” (21). This is the only time Gilman uses something other than a period or a comma. Throughout the poem she is blaming her father for everything then she finally stopped and asked herself “is it me?” the reader feels sorry for the daughter because she is blaming herself for her father’s lavish life. The sentences are broken up to show that her father broke her heart over and over again. The poem makes the reader feel sad for the daughter because her father cared more about the material things rather than his own daughter and she thinks it is all her fault that her father is not around. 

Gilman uses word choice to make the reader feel sorry for the daughter. In stanza II line 2 the author uses the word “lecher” (9) which is not an everyday word. It refers to a person that lives life lavishly and spends money on material things. The author could have used stingy, self-centered or greedy to describe father however the daughter did not use the other words because wanted the reader to think he was a terrible  father.  The one word “Lecher” tells the reader everything thing about the father and made the reader feel sorrowful that the daughter had to see her father’s bad ways. This word tells the reader when the father picks living an outrageous lifestyles over being a father. The daughter feels like she was a good daughter but the father never gave her anytime because he was doing his own thing. The reader feels bad for the daughter because the father was never a father like person to his daughter. 

            The poem had a short and choppy rhythm when the daughter was talking about her father, so the reader feels like the farther did not care enough to be a part of her life. Throughout the poem the sentences were not all complete sentences to show that her father was not in her life, for example in stanza I line 1 the author says “it is friday” (1). The author uses a lot of short sentences to make the father seem like he was not worth her time. The reader feels the negative affect that the father had on his daughter. The short and choppy poem shows that the writer is angry with the father because the father took the joy from the family. The daughter is trying to get a message that he could have been a better father, but he is too late. The poem stays short and choppy because the situation never got better. The poem is about the daughter trying to tell everything he did wrong, by letting her father know all the pain she has been going through. The rhythm was short and choppy in the poem and the writer’s style was straight forward.

            The writer’s style was straight forward because the daughter did not want to waste time trying to get her point across. The daughter did not want to waste her time because the father never gave her anytime.  In stanza II line 1 she says “there is no more time for you” (8).  The father had time connect with his daughter but he lived his life without her, so she did not want to spend time on him because he never took time to care about her. The daughter calls her dad by negative adjectives, for example in stanza 5 line 2 “old lecher”, “old prisoner” and “old pauper” (20). The words that she calls her father says what she feels and thinks about her father. The reader feels sorry for the daughter because the father never was a father to his daughter. The style shows how the daughter really feels instead of elaborating. The style helps the reader imagine the daughter yelling at her father and makes them feel sad for the daughter because she did not have a good father.                                                                                                           

The author uses word choice to describe how her dad was not a good father. Punctuation played a big role in this poem by using lowercase letters to show the father did not care about the daughter. The rhythm is short and choppy to show she was angry at her father. The style was straightforward to not waste time and to get things off her chest. The author uses the elements word choice, punctuation, rhythm and style to make the reader feel sorry for the daughter. The elements help the reader understand the father and daughter relationship and how the father was wrong for not being there for his daughter. The father chose to live an outrageous life rather than take care of his family. The reader feels like the father was a jerk and felt sorry for his daughter, because no child should ever feel like it is their fault that their parents do not want to care for them. . Gilman uses the elements word choice, punctuation, rhythm and style to make the reader feel sorry for the daughter.  
