"The Gift"

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses and analyzes the different stanzas in Li-Young Lee's poem, "The Gift". The paper notes that the first stanza speaks to every generation in every culture on earth and that it show readers a father, who is gently pulling a metal splinter from a son's hand. The writer maintains that the way in which the father does this is so gentle and sweet; every family should read the poem once a year. The writer concludes that the Asian culture is known as a culture where families raise their children with great care to be educated, responsible, and to plan well for the future. Reading a sensitive poem like this takes one's mind off the world's problems and focuses on the family, and on love, and a father's gentle but strong hand.

From the Paper:

"The scene would have been a father hovering over his son's hand, and the person entering would not know right away what was happening. Maybe the father is reading the boy's palm in some kind of astrology or fortune-telling move? But no, the poem leads the reader to think that the father was planting something in the boy's hand, like a father likes to plant good ideas and good values into a boy's life. The symbolism seems to be that the planting of "a silver tear" could be a tear from the pain of the metal splinter being pulled out, or the tear of the fear in the boy's heart that he might not recover from this injury."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Art & Culture. "The Gift- Li-Young Lee." Retrieved Nov. 28, 2007, from http://www.artandculture.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/AClive.woa/wa/artist?id=1084.
• Conte, Joseph. "Li-Young Lee." Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 165: American Poets Since World War II, Fourth Series. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book (1996): 139-146.
• Madsen, Deborah L. "Li-Young Lee." Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 312: Asian American Writers. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book (2005): 202-206.

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