A Story, by Li-Young Lee
Sad is the man who is asked for a story
and can’t come up with one.
His five-year-old son waits in his lap.
Not the same story, Baba. A new one.
The man rubs his chin, scratches his ear.
In a room full of books in a world
of stories, he can recall
not one, and soon, he thinks, the boy
will give up on his father.
Already the man lives far ahead, he sees
the day this boy will go. Don’t go!
Hear the alligator story! The angel story once more!
You love the spider story. You laugh at the spider.
Let me tell it!
But the boy is packing his shirts,
he is looking for his keys. Are you a god,
the man screams, that I sit mute before you?
Am I a god that I should never disappoint?
But the boy is here. Please, Baba, a story?
It is an emotional rather than logical equation,
an earthly rather than heavenly one,
which posits that a boy’s supplications
and a father’s love add up to silence.
Hmm. This is one of those poems that I can't quite work out. It is also one of the few that gives us (the teenage, pre-college population) an extremely different perspective from the adults who had the joy of raising us. Many questions circle around my naive head. Why can't he come up with a story? Why are they both silent? Why does the man live in the future? I honestly don't know. On the surface it sounds like the ultimate trade-off for having a child--having to let go of him when the time comes. But where does that pain come from? And how do 'stories' relate to it?
I breathe a secret sigh of relief that I wasn't an AP Lit student in 2011. This poem would have stumped me, and maybe rendered me heartbroken because it would have been even more relevant as I sat in the testing room, taking my last test as a high school senior living under my parents' roof. Then I'd realize how my parents loved me all along and wanted me to be with them forever, that I wasn't just a money sucker, and I would leave my tears along the edges of my Timed Writing paper when I finished. How are you supposed to to feel when that happens? Something along the lines of what the poem is trying to convey?
As the child asks for a story from a father who can't think of one, you can see that the child is still wholly dependent on the father figure; the term baba carries this meaning in itself, as it hints at the child's young age and inability to say "father" or "dad" (baba is a lot more fun, and easier, to say). This physical and mental weakness of being too small and immature to understand the world is the reason why he asks his father, the baba, to describe it for him in the form of stories. However, the father simply can't; the contrast in the third stanza between the father's lack of story time skills and the enriched environment around him emphasizes this point. But why? All these lessons to teach his young son, all the anecdotes in the world that the father can come up with from his past experiences, and not one single utterance from his mouth.
His fault lies in his mind's place elsewhere in the world, the future. The first half of the poem can be viewed in such metaphorical terms, the stereotypical situation where the father is never living in the present day, taking care of his son, because he's too worried about the future. It's a sad truth that many children live in and many fathers regret when the first true look they give to their son is one of his back, leaving the door for college, or a job, or who-knows-where. Once the father feels stable and comfortable about the future, he looks back only to realize that the son has already grown up, has already given up on those promised stories left in the past. It turns out to be ironic, then, when the son doesn't answer the father's question in the fifth stanza. At this point, the father is desperately grasping at straws, finally focusing on the present time of telling stories to a son who is already thinking about the future, seen in his packing of clothes and searching for car keys; he's all set on moving forward. The places that life takes him is seen as more important than the dull, childish time with his father. They've switched places.
This leaves both father and son at a standstill; they're never quite in the same place, thought-wise. The father's cries of defiance and the son's silence is mirrored immediately in the final stanza, when the son pleads the father for a story. He wants this knowledge that the father has been abstaining in fear that his child will grow up to be the all-knowing man the father fears to be. But it's all so futile! No matter how many stories the father tells (or refuses to tell), the son will always leave. That's part of life, part of child-rearing, is it not? This leaves the father thinking in sad circles, thinking not "logically" but "emotionally," almost a selfish need to keep his son by his side when the son is more than ready to leave.
But the last two lines present us with the final stroke of irony: how the child's pleads, added with the father's undying but worrisome love, "add up to silence." This again mirrors the future, when the son's and father's roles are reversed, but the end result is the same--the silent treatment. Thinking about this gives me this aching, heavy feeling in my heart. It's something none of us can really escape from, but the pain comes from the love we have with one another. It' just sad to think that this overwhelming passion for one another creates nothing but silence, a deadening feeling that leaves you numb. How do you fix something like that? I know my parents enough to realize I wouldn't get an answer if I asked one of my parents. I'd just be met with silence.
Sad is the man who is asked for a story
and can’t come up with one.
His five-year-old son waits in his lap.
Not the same story, Baba. A new one.
The man rubs his chin, scratches his ear.
In a room full of books in a world
of stories, he can recall
not one, and soon, he thinks, the boy
will give up on his father.
Already the man lives far ahead, he sees
the day this boy will go. Don’t go!
Hear the alligator story! The angel story once more!
You love the spider story. You laugh at the spider.
Let me tell it!
But the boy is packing his shirts,
he is looking for his keys. Are you a god,
the man screams, that I sit mute before you?
Am I a god that I should never disappoint?
But the boy is here. Please, Baba, a story?
It is an emotional rather than logical equation,
an earthly rather than heavenly one,
which posits that a boy’s supplications
and a father’s love add up to silence.
Hmm. This is one of those poems that I can't quite work out. It is also one of the few that gives us (the teenage, pre-college population) an extremely different perspective from the adults who had the joy of raising us. Many questions circle around my naive head. Why can't he come up with a story? Why are they both silent? Why does the man live in the future? I honestly don't know. On the surface it sounds like the ultimate trade-off for having a child--having to let go of him when the time comes. But where does that pain come from? And how do 'stories' relate to it?
I breathe a secret sigh of relief that I wasn't an AP Lit student in 2011. This poem would have stumped me, and maybe rendered me heartbroken because it would have been even more relevant as I sat in the testing room, taking my last test as a high school senior living under my parents' roof. Then I'd realize how my parents loved me all along and wanted me to be with them forever, that I wasn't just a money sucker, and I would leave my tears along the edges of my Timed Writing paper when I finished. How are you supposed to to feel when that happens? Something along the lines of what the poem is trying to convey?
As the child asks for a story from a father who can't think of one, you can see that the child is still wholly dependent on the father figure; the term baba carries this meaning in itself, as it hints at the child's young age and inability to say "father" or "dad" (baba is a lot more fun, and easier, to say). This physical and mental weakness of being too small and immature to understand the world is the reason why he asks his father, the baba, to describe it for him in the form of stories. However, the father simply can't; the contrast in the third stanza between the father's lack of story time skills and the enriched environment around him emphasizes this point. But why? All these lessons to teach his young son, all the anecdotes in the world that the father can come up with from his past experiences, and not one single utterance from his mouth.
His fault lies in his mind's place elsewhere in the world, the future. The first half of the poem can be viewed in such metaphorical terms, the stereotypical situation where the father is never living in the present day, taking care of his son, because he's too worried about the future. It's a sad truth that many children live in and many fathers regret when the first true look they give to their son is one of his back, leaving the door for college, or a job, or who-knows-where. Once the father feels stable and comfortable about the future, he looks back only to realize that the son has already grown up, has already given up on those promised stories left in the past. It turns out to be ironic, then, when the son doesn't answer the father's question in the fifth stanza. At this point, the father is desperately grasping at straws, finally focusing on the present time of telling stories to a son who is already thinking about the future, seen in his packing of clothes and searching for car keys; he's all set on moving forward. The places that life takes him is seen as more important than the dull, childish time with his father. They've switched places.
This leaves both father and son at a standstill; they're never quite in the same place, thought-wise. The father's cries of defiance and the son's silence is mirrored immediately in the final stanza, when the son pleads the father for a story. He wants this knowledge that the father has been abstaining in fear that his child will grow up to be the all-knowing man the father fears to be. But it's all so futile! No matter how many stories the father tells (or refuses to tell), the son will always leave. That's part of life, part of child-rearing, is it not? This leaves the father thinking in sad circles, thinking not "logically" but "emotionally," almost a selfish need to keep his son by his side when the son is more than ready to leave.
But the last two lines present us with the final stroke of irony: how the child's pleads, added with the father's undying but worrisome love, "add up to silence." This again mirrors the future, when the son's and father's roles are reversed, but the end result is the same--the silent treatment. Thinking about this gives me this aching, heavy feeling in my heart. It's something none of us can really escape from, but the pain comes from the love we have with one another. It' just sad to think that this overwhelming passion for one another creates nothing but silence, a deadening feeling that leaves you numb. How do you fix something like that? I know my parents enough to realize I wouldn't get an answer if I asked one of my parents. I'd just be met with silence.
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