Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

Irving Feldman's poem "Father and Son" revisits the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac but provides a modern and psychological interpretation that twists the original narrative's themes of faith and obedience. Feldman strips away the sacred context and presents the father-son relationship as a fierce battleground where nothing is sanctified or redeemed, revealing instead a stark confrontation characterized by power struggle, pride, and primal instincts.

The poem opens with an immediate tension, "Set against each other, ready to butt and struggle," presenting the father and son as natural adversaries. Their glaring eyes and "fiercely vivid anger" establish their mutual animosity. Instead of a harmonious relationship built on love and understanding, Feldman paints an image of perpetual conflict, where both parties are "isolated together in daily deadlock," suggesting a chronic pattern of unresolved tension.

Feldman explicitly departs from the Biblical motif of divine command and sacrifice: "Not sacrifice: murder." Here, the father is not fulfilling a divine mandate but is driven by primal instincts that echo murder more than obedience. The son, embodying his father's image, appears "mercurial and defiant," underscoring their shared attributes but also signaling a burgeoning rebellion. This duality emphasizes their mirror-like relationship: the son's defiance and independence mirror the father's pride and determination.

The setting of "this Moriah" evokes the Biblical Mount Moriah, where Abraham intended to sacrifice Isaac, yet Feldman's Moriah is a desolate place where nothing divine intervenes. "This is no test, but plainly real," he writes, suggesting the absence of divine intention or blessing. Feldman portrays the characters as "unsanctioned, unblessed, unpunished," marking them as ordinary people bound by mortal impulses rather than guided by divine destiny.

Feldman further subverts the traditional narrative by removing the miraculous intervention of the ram: "Will no miraculous ram now come bleating... misleading death for the future's sake?" The father's desperate search for "imagined horns" in the "rocky field" is a futile attempt to find divine reprieve. The ram's absence signifies the absence of divine guidance, leaving the father to "wrestle out a ram from nothingness." This phrase captures the father's desperate struggle to find meaning or direction amid a "stunned impenetrable world."

As the father grapples with his despair, the "pitiless son looks on." The son's lack of empathy indicates his alienation from the father's emotional turmoil. Feldman complicates this dynamic by introducing ambiguity in the "shriek this faithless toiling father hears." Is it "his own? or his son's? or some ancient cry"? The indistinct origin of the cry echoes a shared anguish that transcends generations. This mingling of ancestral and personal suffering creates a poignant connection between the characters and the timeless cycle of conflict and trauma that binds them.

In the end, the father "mingles death with his generations," implying that the unresolved tensions between father and son perpetuate a legacy of destruction. Feldman closes the poem with a grim acceptance of the generational curse, as if to say that the absence of divine intervention has doomed them to repeat their fate.

Structurally, Feldman's poem is written in free verse, which allows for a natural flow of ideas and emotions. The lack of regular rhyme or meter emphasizes the poem's stark realism and psychological complexity. His language is vivid and evocative, with imagery that conjures both the harshness of the physical landscape and the intensity of the characters' emotions. Words like "grapples," "stunned," "pitiless," and "faithless" deepen the sense of desolation and futility that permeate the poem.

In "Father and Son", Feldman masterfully deconstructs the sacred narrative of Abraham and Isaac, revealing the psychological undercurrents of pride, defiance, and despair that shape the relationship between fathers and sons. By removing the divine mandate and miraculous intervention, he presents a brutally honest portrayal of familial conflict, where each generation is left to grapple with the legacy of unresolved anger and unfulfilled expectations. The poem thus serves as a profound meditation on the inherent struggle within the father-son bond and the cyclical nature of generational trauma.

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