A man, A son, No Story

In Li-Young Lee’s poem, “A Story”, there is a lot of tension between the father and himself; there are also many literary devices such as hyperbole and flashback. In “A Story” the son asked his dad to come up with a story, one that he hasn’t heard before, but when the father is unable to think of a story he starts to worry. He doesn’t quite know what to do and just sits there in silence thinking with his son on his lap. The author uses hyperbole to show the stress that the dad is under when he can’t find a story. The speaker talks about his son leaving “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.” He believes that because of him not being able to tell a story to his son right now will make it so he packs up and leaves. The other literary device that Li-Young uses is flash-forward. He uses flash-forward to show how the son will leave his father.  The dad does not see a good day, but a day he dreads oh so much; “Already the man lives far ahead, he sees the day this boy will go.”  These devices add to the central tension between the dad and himself because the things he dreads most will all happen due to one tiny problem, not being able to come up with a story.