English

'Four times now i have seen you as another 

Man, a grown up friend, less than a father'

• Poet sees dad open up + reveal true feelings 4 times

• 'a grown up friend' Dad more of a friend

• 'Less than a father' - Boy wants dad to be dad rather friend this point. Naivety. Negative on dad. Too young realistic relationship

• Enjambement - Emphasis on another + man. Ambigous seeing father as another man
• 'Four times' repetition later on in poem

'Chinks in the Paternal Mail'

• Thinks of father as kight - strong brave
• Father will not show weakness. Idealised image
• Chinks ' Flaws, doubts, holes in armour
• METAPHOR - true self reveals itself beneath fathers stoic image

'And in the porch, (among the men), you cried'

• 'Porch' isolated

• 'Among the men' - rather than other man does not think father behaving like man. Crying

• Death leads to honest reaction. Loves son can't maintain brave face. As poet older wants father more emotional + caring
• Flaws make him view father as human, appreciates it.
• 'You cried' emphasises weakness.

'I left you at the barrier

Was embarassed when you stood a beer'

• Son embarssed dad acting like friend buying alcohol
• Due to wife leaving resorts alcohol coping mechanism. Emphasises family love
• Father trying to connect in more honest way. To show human not 'knight'

'To-day , a sinner, and shy about it

• Change of tense, now present not pas
• Abiguity? Who is sinner? Father or poet
• 'Sinner' is because confessing. But to what? More ambiguity

'What is going on 

under that thick grey skull? What confession

Are you preparing?

• Rhetorical question - suggests confussion for son. Doesn't understand dads thought process
• Double meaning - 'Thick' idiotic on the other bulky/solid
• Suggests father is hard to comms with or gain his attention
• 'Under' First word new sentence gives emphasis. Suggests key to figure out what father thinks about lies beneath outer shell
• 'Grey' - Unknown area
• 'Skull' - barrier needs to be broken, solid, just as skull to protect fragile brain, fathers emotions

'What confession

.......................? Do you kill sins as i would?'

• Older boy wants to know fathers weakness unlike earlier vulnerability
• To know as man not idealised version
• Yet father won't confess to the boy. Only god
• Only here will show vulnerabilty
• Insearching for his own father, he leads to the father'

' You grunt and slam the door. I watch another 

who gropes as awkwardly to know 

his father'

• 'Father' Ambigous - Who is the father? God? double meaning, literal, figurative
• 1st meaning - Him watching someone else at church, trying to know father but not understanding. Literal?
• 2nd - His father trying to get to know god. Metaphor.
• 'Grunt' - lack of meaningful comms. Father + son
• 'Gropes' - Suggest father struggles to know his father just as much as son with biological
• 'Gropes' awkwardly show uncertainty of movement. Down to sins dad will confess.

Echoes first two lines on thoughts of father

'by telling me an almost smutty story

In a restauant toliet. We both knew

This was an unprecedented breakthrough'

• 'Smutty' - negative conno, sleazy
• never happened before
• acts like a mate
• end of past