A Story By Li Young Lee Summary

From the moment that a child is born the countdown clock begins, eighteen years and counting. With each second that fades by, the parent watches his grip on his child slowly slip. In “A Story”, Li-Young Lee uses poetic diction, structure, and point of view to convey the complex relationship between a father and his son. Frustrated and hopeless a father “rubs his chin, scratches his ear,” in search for the perfect story to appease the demands of his son. Lee uses poetic diction to express the father’s frustration with his inability to “come up with [a story]” and the sons’s eager affection towards this unsuccessful storyteller. Two different personalities are being displayed in the text through the use of diction. The first is of the father
Lee uses the alternation between the present and the future to express what is actually happening compared to what the father fears may happen. With bright curious eyes “his five-year-old son waits on his lap” in the present demanding to hear a new story. His son is his life’s greatest creation and he wants to be able to share that with him. Yet his frustration stands in the way of him being able to express this. As many have said that they have seen their lives flash before their eyes, in a way so is the father. He see his son “looking for his keys” ready to leave his silly story-less father behind. At this point the poem leap forward several years, and the eighteen year countdown is coming to an end. The father cries “don’t go” in desperation as he watches his son leave him. Unrealistically he believes that hearing the “angel story once more” will keep his son sitting on his lap. Yet as the poem shift a final time back into the present the attitude of the father changes quiet drastically. He found the peace after the storm, he found acceptance. As the son softly inquires for another story the realization dawns upon the father, that the silence shared between the two of them is the best way to express his love. No alligator nor spider story will ever convey as much affection as the story of love that is too strong to be