Dilip Chitre's "Father Returning Home" reflects on the alienation of modern life, the disconnect between parents and children, and the desire for a sense of belonging. The father of the poem's title embarks on a lonely, late-night commute home from work in the city. After a long train ride, he rushes through the mud and the rain only to reach a joyless house with emotionally distant children, and he eventually falls asleep dreaming of his ancestors. Chitre published "Father Returning Home" in his 1980 collection Travelling in a Cage. The poem is written in free verse and was inspired by Chitre's memories of his own father, a periodical publisher in Mumbai, coming home from work in the 1950s.

• Read the full text of “Father Returning Home”

• “Father Returning Home” Summary

• “Father Returning Home” Themes

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    The Alienation and Restlessness of Modern Life

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-6
    • Lines 13-19
    • Lines 21-24
  • 

    Family, Legacy, and Intergenerational Conflict

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 8-9
    • Lines 13-14
    • Lines 20-24
  • 

    Fatherhood and Masculinity

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 6-7
    • Lines 10-16
    • Lines 20-21
    • Lines 22-23

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Father Returning Home”

  • Lines 1-3

    My father travels ...
    ... his unseeing eyes

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 4-7

    His shirt and ...
    ... humid monsoon night.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 8-12

    Now I can ...
    ... he hurries onward.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 13-16

    Home again, I ...
    ... a man-made world.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 17-19

    Coming out he ...
    ... on his wrists.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 20-24

    His sullen children ...
    ... a narrow pass.

    

    

    

    

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• “Father Returning Home” Symbols

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    Static

    Where this symbol appears in the poem:

    • Lines 21-22: “He will now go to sleep / Listening to the static on the radio,”

• “Father Returning Home” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

  • Imagery

    

    

    

    

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    Where imagery appears in the poem:

    • Lines 2-7: “Standing among silent commuters in the yellow light / Suburbs slide past his unseeing eyes / His shirt and pants are soggy and his black raincoat / Stained with mud and his bag stuffed with books / Is falling apart. His eyes dimmed by age / fade homeward through the humid monsoon night.”
    • Lines 12-14: “His chappals are sticky with mud, but he hurries onward. / Home again, I see him drinking weak tea, / Eating a stale chapati”
    • Lines 17-19: “Coming out he trembles at the sink, / The cold water running over his brown hands, / A few droplets cling to the greying hairs on his wrists.”

  • Asyndeton

    

    

    

    

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    Where asyndeton appears in the poem:

    • Lines 10-12: “He hurries across the length of the grey platform, / Crosses the railway line, enters the lane, / His chappals are sticky with mud”
    • Lines 13-14: “I see him drinking weak tea, / Eating a stale chapati, reading a book.”
    • Lines 18-19: “The cold water running over his brown hands, / A few droplets cling to the greying hairs on his wrists.”
    • Lines 22-24: “Listening to the static on the radio, dreaming / Of his ancestors and grandchildren, thinking / Of nomads entering a subcontinent through a narrow pass.”

  • Simile

    

    

    

    

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    Where simile appears in the poem:

    • Lines 8-9: “Now I can see him getting off the train / Like a word dropped from a long sentence.”

  • Enjambment

    

    

    

    

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    Where enjambment appears in the poem:

    • Lines 4-5: “raincoat / Stained”
    • Lines 5-6: “books / Is”
    • Lines 6-7: “age / fade”
    • Lines 8-9: “train / Like”
    • Lines 15-16: “contemplate / Man's”
    • Lines 20-21: “share / Jokes”
    • Lines 21-22: “sleep / Listening”
    • Lines 22-23: “dreaming / Of”
    • Lines 23-24: “thinking / Of”

  • Parallelism

    

    

    

    

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    Where parallelism appears in the poem:

    • Lines 4-5: “and his black raincoat / Stained with mud and his bag stuffed with books”
    • Line 6: “His eyes dimmed by age”
    • Line 11: “Crosses the railway line, enters the lane,”
    • Lines 13-14: “drinking weak tea, / Eating a stale chapati, reading a book.”
    • Lines 22-24: “Listening to the static on the radio, dreaming / Of his ancestors and grandchildren, thinking / Of nomads entering a subcontinent through a narrow pass.”

• “Father Returning Home” Vocabulary

  Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

  • Commuters
  • Monsoon
  • Chappals
  • Chapati
  • Estrangement
  • Sullen
  • Nomads
  • Subcontinent
  • Pass
  • (Location in poem: Line 2: “Standing among silent commuters”)

• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Father Returning Home”

  • Form

  • Meter

  • Rhyme Scheme

• “Father Returning Home” Speaker

• “Father Returning Home” Setting

• Literary and Historical Context of “Father Returning Home”

• More “Father Returning Home” Resources

  • External Resources

    • Listen to the Poem Aloud — An animated recording of "Father Returning Home."

    • A Bilingual, Multi-Disciplinary Artist — Read a short overview of Chitre's many accomplishments, courtesy of Poetry International.  

    • More Poems About Fathers — A collection of poems about fathers from The Academy of American Poets.  

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