The foundation of a family breaks when there is a loose end.  If one member of a family does not deliver their part, all members struggle. This is very evident in the poem, Forgiving my Father by Lucille Clifton. Not everyone goes through the hardships Clifton has gone through, so she manifests these hardships through her poem. She uses words such as: debt, payday, and other words relating to monetary value to reflect her personal conflict of how she deals with the abandonment committed by her father. These words are expressed through repetition and the use of metaphors. All of these terms mainly relate to the emotional, and physical support of her father throughout her life.

Clifton consistently repeats the subject of payday; she does this to express the importance of what her father had done and how it had been a problem for years. This is evident when she states, “ today is payday, payday old man, my mother’s hand opens in/ her early grave and I hold it out like a good daughter” (Clifton 5-7).   From this example, Clifton portrays how her dad has clearly made her and her mother suffer and it is something that has been relevant for years because of the repetition expressed in this part of the poem. By repeating the word “payday” she is able to emphasize the hidden meaning behind it, which is giving back to their family as a whole. Her father has never done this before; therefore he keeps increasing his debt towards the family. The evidence that shows her fathers continued lack of caring is shown by the overall use of repetition. Clifton and her mother are willing to give him another chance; they are prepared to accept what he has to give them. Even though he has never delivered they still hope and give him a chance. They are struggling as a family due to the continued lack of effort by the father.

By giving his family nothing to offer, the father is gaining more debt every payday. Debt can be considered a metaphor within the big picture in order to emphasize the larger metaphor, which is overall monetary value.  Clifton lets the audience know this by referring to the topic of debt at the very end of the poem. She says, “ you lie side by side in debtors’ boxes and no accounting will open them” (Clifton 22-23). Meaning he has not been able to pay in so long that there is no way he can get out of the debt he has created for himself. The father has died; therefore he can never get out of debt. “He is laying “side by side in a debtors’ [box]” (22-23) with the rest of his family because he brought them down with him. With Clifton mentioning accounting she is saying that even with help nothing can change not only because he has passed away but because the debt is to extreme. She tried her hardest to forgive him, but the pain was to heavy along with the constant disappointment of never being able to pay. This all made her realize that forgiveness was not an option and the lack of forgiving ultimately made up the debt she referred to. This relates more to the inner emotional conflict of the situation where as the repetition in stanzas prior relates to her physical conflicts with her father. She would keep telling herself that he would soon change and be different, but deep on the inside she knew it was not true when every week he would not be there. 

Clifton also uses other words related to monetary value in order to prove just how little her father was able to contribute to her and her mother. This is because money is something everyone understands and it is important in the lives of a lot of people. Using these terms makes the topic more approachable and easier to understand because no one can fully understand the pain her and her mother have faced. For example, Clifton says   “ I wish you were rich so I could take it all and give the lady what she was due” (Clifton 10-11). Clifton is explaining what she wants to happen, even though this is just a wish the audience is still able to realize that her and her mother’s life would be better if there was no debt. No one can understand what she has gone through and that is why she uses more terms of monetary value to get across the actual severity of her life with her father. She is getting the point across that her father owes her family a lot and they deserve it because of how much suffering they have to go through, but no one can relate to the suffering she has gone through unless they have felt it themselves. By using these terms of monetary value and using literary devices such as metaphors and repetition the topic becomes more clear and easier to understand.

In its entirety, Forgiving my Father is a poem that uses words related to monetary value and literary devices such as metaphors and repetition to display the negative effect her and her mother have had on the abandonment of their father. Clifton creates the metaphor of debt and payday to show how extreme the suffering is within her family. No one can truly understand the extent of her hardships and that is why the terms of monetary value or used. They are used in order to give the audience something to relate to. Repetition is another huge part in the poem to emphasize the dangerous amount of pain her and her family have gone through. By repeating the most important words related to the overall metaphor it becomes clearer how severe the problem actual and how much she has had to suffer. The words she repeats the most are payday and debt, these are all words that describe the issues the father has cause and how often he has done it. 
