A Story By Li-Young Lee

Time has the tendency to impact everyone and everything. In the poem “A Story” Li-Young Lee reveals the intimate yet short lived relationship of the father and the son through the use of dialogue, conflict and point of view to hint at the inevitably of children branching out and possibly surpassing their parents. Emphasized through the differing perspectives of the father and son Lee highlights the innocence of young children and parents and their changing relationship over time.
The speaker depicting the boy waiting “in his [father’s] lap” contributes to the audience’s understanding of the closeness between the two. The father’s list of stories he offers his son illustrates how the pair have been sharing narratives times before. The son