Literary Devices In Li-Young Lee's 'A Story'

From the first-time read through, the poem gives a basic understanding of the narrative: a daughter telling the audience about her mother’s struggles

Ji-Li successfully argues that in a time of despair, families can overcome their sadness and rise up again; Ji-Li is able to prove this point effectively by providing her own detailed story and including not only her perspective, but also the perspectives of different people such as her classmates and teachers.

The first feeling of this story is that the boy and his father struggle with their relationship, but as it unfolds, the reader sees how they do care for each other. It also becomes easier to spot the difficulties of communicating within a broken family. The father does a fine job to of turning the boy’s scheduling obsessions into a positive for the boy by noting it as one of his strong points.

The most complex relationship one could ever try to understand is the relationship of a child and his or her parents. In the poem, “Our Son Swears He Has 102 Gallons of Water in His Body,” by Naomi Shihab Nye, the speaker effectively portrays the damaged relationship between a child and his parents. The son in the poem believes he knows everything, and his “know-it-all” mentality is the source of the family’s troubles. Through details, imagery, and a shift in the last stanza, the speaker conveys the son’s stubbornness.

The relationship between father and son changes over time, and molds along with the people in encapsulates. As in real life, the father and son who inhabit Li-Young Lee’s poem “A Story” experience sudden changes within their relationship as the time passes on. The son’s cries for a story that slowly change into adult conversations throughout the poem indicate that with maturity and age comes both understanding and hostility.

“Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice”, focuses on the relationship between the protagonist, who is referred to as ‘Child’, and his father, referred to as ‘Ba’. The opening story follows the protagonist as he is struggling to overcome writers block, whilst dealing with his estranged Vietnamese father who is visiting. A number of flashbacks are used as a literary device to divulge into the protagonists past with his father as well as the fathers past. This reveals, not only an abusive past with his father, but also his father’s memories of the Vietnam war. It becomes clear that the son makes excuses for his father, with his girlfriend Linda also noting this, “I think you’re making excuses for him…You’re romanticising his past to make sense of the things you said he did to you” (pp.20). The protagonist reflects this himself, making the excuse that “he was a soldier” (pp.13), and that is why his father treated him as he did. The protagonist, despite once being able to admit to Linda that his father abused him, can no longer admit this, as his relationship with his father grows, and it can be argued that he is willing to overlook his past in an attempt to reconcile with his father. “It was too much these words, and what connected to them” (pp.13).

Despite the mistakes his father and brother made, Lee managed to grow learning the ways of a true Southern gentleman. The departure of his father and two older half-brothers made Lee the man of the house at an early age. His mother, Ann Carter, raised Lee in modest circumstances and helped him to learn standard of conduct. Lee grew up in modest conditions, and though he received the normal education for someone of his class, he had to earn his own living and didn’t live the easy-going plantation life that most members of his family did. Since his mother did not have sufficient cash to send Lee to go to college, he chose instead to enter West Point military and academy. He entered in 1825 at the age of 18. At West Point Lee excelled tremendously. He finished second in his class and didn’t receive one demerit during his four years there (A feat that has yet to be repeated since then). Lee entered Engineer Corps after graduation where he was employed to build and maintain military installations and assist the Federal Government in the enormous work of providing internal improvements in order to settle border disputes on the frontier lands.

Lee was born January 19, 1807, in Virginia. He graduated from U.S military in second, and when the Civil war started, he was instantly a hero for the South, because of his smart tactics, and his plans for everything he did. If he were to fight for the Union, it would have lasted about one year, and Lincoln knew that. Thats why Lincon asked Lee to fight for him, but Lee declined the offer kindly. One of the wars he fought in before the Cival War was the Mexican war, and he was promoted to colonel because of his bravness, and his sense of survival. Lee saw himself as a wing, in the family greatness. At the age of 18, he enrolled to the point Military Academy, while there he put his mind to that and seriously minded to work hard and determined. He said “Do your duty in all things.You cannot do more; you should never wish to do less.”After graduating he married a girl named Marry Custis, they had seven kids three boys and four girls. During war he said “I cannot trust a man to control others if he cannot control

Robert E. Lee was in born on January 19th 1807, Lee’s father was a founding father in 1776 and Served as the Cavalry leader in the American Revolution. Lee grew older having the desire to be in the American military and went to the best Military academy in the United States, West Point military academy.where he graduated without getting a single demerit, which scored him perfect scores in Artillery, Infantry, and Cavalry. After graduating from West point Lee married a women by the name of mary Custis who was the granddaughter of Martha and George Washington. Together they had 7 children. As a family they lived on the Washington's Plantation. But all of his Army loyalties moved him all over the countries. In 1846,

The boy, engulfed with embarrassment, plans to “fix” his brother. During the years a brotherly bond was created, however it was not strong enough from the narrator’s side and he let his pride overtake his love. When the plan failed, the boy abandoned his brother in a storm which concluded with his brother dying. Only at the end of the story, when the brother died, the boy realised how much his brother really meant to him however it was too late. This story has an unhealthy internal conflict with the narrator's pride and childish spite.

Lee’s mom moved back to New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1956 Lee joined the U.S. Marines while developing his interest in socialist literature that he started in New York. Lee was quoted to be a better than average marksman but he was court-martialed twice in 1958 for the possession of illegal weapons and for his violent behavior. He soon notified the russian that he wanted to move their and serve the Soviet Union. After an intense debate he was elected for a spy and he was strictly monitored by the Soviet Union. Lee Oswald soon dissifactory of the Soviet Union moved back to the United States in 1962 bringing his wife and his newborn daughter.

His desperation to seek the stability of his father’s nature and his guilt, associated with his failure to reap the rewards of his father’s teachings, creates the tension in their relationship. There is no doubt of his admiration for his father which is supported with both his declaration of love in third stanza and how he described his father in the first. The description of his father also shows the extent of his admiration for his father because, with his knowledge that the future is as unpredictable for his father, he can acknowledge the fact that his father, despite the unknown of the next moment, is prepared to care and protect. The tension of their relationship is create by the son feeling inferior to nature of his father. This feeling of inferiority affects the way the narrator views himself, making this an issue of his own conscious and self-worth rather than with his father.

The literary devices such as point of view, imagery, and structure are all utilized in each individual poem

One of the most treasured days in an adolescent’s life is the day he or she finally has the opportunity to venture into the world outside of the influence of parents. However, young adults often fail to conceive the impact their departure actually has on their parents. It is usually believed that the parents will revel in what their children perceive as a newfound freedom of their own; in reality, it is quite a mournful day for parents. This facet of the parent-child relationship is presented in Li Young Lee’s poem, “A Story,” where he uses a dynamic point-of-view and progressive variations in structure to highlight the pain parents often feel upon separation from those they spent so long nurturing.

What literary device does the writer use in the story? What is the effect/meaning of each device?