Letter To My Father

Letter to my Father is a letter that is set in Cork, during the winter months of 1995, which was five years after Eamon Patrick Keane died (the father). This account was written as a way of remembering his father and how life was like with him before he died. The tone in which it is written conveys a sense of resentment and disapproval of the fathers lifestyle and this is clearly shown through various aspects which are touched upon throughout the passage. The passage uses several literary techniques such as metaphors, alliteration and short effective sentences in order to convey things such as the authors’ feelings towards his father.

Detail such as words or phrases that give a sense of destruction and chaos are used to create a harsh environment that replicates the author’s life and how everything is going wrong. The most effective phrase used to portray this is “here among the broken chairs, the overturned Christmas tree, we are preparing to leave you.” The author is telling us how they are prepared to throw their old, twisted lives away and start a new one. Here we can tell that the author is ashamed of his fathers lifestyle, he then uses a very short effective sentence saying “we are breaking away from you, Da.” This basically summarises the piece of text into a short, bold sentence.

The majority of the passage is written in the past tense and therefore giving us a sense of immediacy. By using the present tense, the writer shows us that he is reliving the moments where he witnessed his father at his worst state and this gives us a sense that the author is now empathetic. The use of fragmented narration shows us the small detail that the author remembers about his father, as opposed to a chronological chain of thoughts where everything is included.

Onomatopoeic words such as “crashed” and “rattling” describes the actions of the father, this paragraph is written in the past tense however the author effectively describes his memories,