A Tense Story

The central tension in Li-Young Li’s poem is expressed with metaphors and irony. Metaphors and irony in this story shows the central tension which is that the dad shouldn’t worry about the future, but only worry about the present. This is because the father fears that the son will grow up and forget about him, so he wants to use the time in the present to spend time with the son. Irony is used to help this central tension develop because “he thinks, the boy will give up on his father. Already the man lives far ahead, he sees the day the boy will go. Don’t go!” This is ironic because the boy will give up on his dad and instead of giving up; the dad wants to fight for the boy and doesn’t want the boy to give up on him. “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.” This is a metaphor because this shows that the father really loves his son and doesn’t want him to grow up. Metaphor and irony is used to help develop the central tension.
-David Lai