Father Returning Home

The main
message of the poem is that of individual alienation in modern society, as illustrated in the
father of the title who appears as a tired, poor, shabby old man. In this way the poem taps into
a common theme of modern literature the world over. Much of the poem is taken up with a visual
description of this man, all of which emphasises his loneliness and world-weariness. We first
see him among other commuters on the train journey home where he sits with his wretched
belongings, alone in a crowd. In a particularly striking image, he is described as 'getting off
the train/Like a word dropped from a long  sentence. This gives a sense of his irrelevance in
this society, which like the train goes on unheedingly without him. Yet, although so downtrodden
and so easily ignored, there is a hint of an indomitable spirit within him when it is said that
in spite of his muddied €˜chappals, or sandals, he still €˜hurries onward.

Significantly, it is not only the outside world but also his own home which appears as
a wholly unsympathetic environment; he is given €˜stale things to eat, and his €˜sullen children
seem to largely ignore him. Devoid even of family companionship, it is little surprise that he
retreats €˜to contemplate/Mans estrangement from a man-made world. This is the one time that the
poem directly states its central message. The depiction of this mans estrangement not only from
society at large but also from his own family lends the piece a double piquancy.

The poem, then, conveys an overwhelming sense of the sordidness and bleakness of one
mans life. There seems to be little route of escape for this unfortunate character €“ except, it
seems, in the inner recesses of his own mind where he can dream himself away from the present
time, into the refuge of the far past or the distant future, with his ancestors and his
grandchildren. The poem thus plays up the contrast between this mans frail and shabby exterior
and the rich, teeming inner life that still pulses within him. Despite all external setbacks, it
seems as though the mind can never be quite conquered. In fact, the final image of the poem is
that of conquerors; the man dreams of the hordes of the ancient invaders of India, coming down
through the Khyber Pass. This rich, romantic, inner life is what continues to sustain him
through his uninspiring day-to-day existence in the modern world.

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