*About the poem / poet / title
*Theme
*Poetic devices, language, style
*Special features - tone and type
*Values, message
*Your opinion about the poem
'Father Returning Home' is a poem written by a great celebrated bilingual and the prestigious Sahitya Academy Award winner poet and translator in Marathi and English - Dilip Chitre. This present poem is taken from 'Travelling in a Cage'.
This poem has the theme of man's enstrangement from the materialistic man-made world. This poem has autobiographical touch as the poet Dilip Chitre talks about his father. But beyond that he depicts the loneliness and the feeling of alienation of the grey generation i.e.aged people.
This is a free verse in which there is no rhyme and rhythm.There is the use of uneven length of lines. This poem is divided into two stanzas - first stanza consists 12 lines and second stanza consists 13 lines. In this poem, the poet depicts the pathetic condition of old father. He portrays the dull, exhausting and equally pitiable daily routine of an old father. The poet uses apt words to describe the father- son relationship and suburban life in this poem.
In this poem, the poet has woven pictorial quality very beautifully to describe the evening of life of old father. He also uses the figures of speech like Transferred Epithet, Alliteration,Synecdoche and Onomatopoeia in this beautiful poem. Simile increases the vividness of the pitiable condition of father as the poet directly compares the old father with the word dropped from a sentence which indicates the least value of the old father in the society.where his presence or absence does not make any difference . His existance is meaningless. The dullness or monotonous life of old father is depicted through the colours/words like yellow light, black raincoat,humid monsoon night,grey platform,etc.His solitude has been depicted through 'He goes into the toilet to contemplate' and 'His sullen children have often refused to share jokes and secrets with him'.
The poet Dilip Chitre wants to give message through this poem that the readers should ponder on this issue. They should take care of this grey generation,should spend time with them and share their daily routine with them so that they (elderly people) should not feel alienated or isolated in the home though they are surrounded by family members.
Marking scheme :
Title, Name of the poet 1mk
Theme. 1mk
Poetic devices. 1mk
Value. 1/2 mk
Opinion. 1/2 mk
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4mks
