Raymond Carver's "Photograph of My Father in His Twenty Second Year"

The Poem “Photograph of My Father in His Twenty Second Year” by Raymond Carver is a very interesting poem.  Simply put, the speaker in the poem is looking back on a picture of his (or her) father.  In the first stanza, the speaker allows the reader to know that he/she is looking at the photograph in a “dark, unfamiliar kitchen” during the month of October; this I believe adds a gray, chill to the poem.  The speaker then goes on to describe her father in the remaining lines of the first stanza and the body of the second stanza.  The father looks embarrassed, and young, with a “sheepish grin.”  He is photographed leaning against a 1934 Ford in jeans and a denim shirt with “his old hat cocked over his ear.”  This particular image helps the reader to picture the photograph clearly in their minds eye, as well as to date the photograph.  The great depression was at its peak during the 1930’s, and the onset of America entering World War II is very near (Pearl Harbor was attacked December 7, 1941).  The photograph, we can assume, is black and white; both because of the date the picture was most likely taken, and because of the lack of color in the description.  The speaker describes how his/her father “would like to pose bluff and hearty for his posterity.”  From this description I gathered that the man in the picture was not as confident as he appeared in the previous descriptions.  It seems as though the father is putting on a false appearance for the camera.  This thought is confirmed in the third stanza with the line “but the eyes give him away.”  In the third stanza the speaker describes what the father was like in real life as apposed to the photograph of the younger man.  Also in the third stanza, the speaker describes his/her relationship with his/her father:  “Father, I love you, yet how can I say thank you, I who can’t hold my liquor either, and don’t even know the places to fish?”  In the end the reader feels a since of connection between the speaker of the poem and the young father in the photograph.

Unfamiliar words:

·      Yellow Perch: (noun) edible freshwater fish with a high spiny dorsal fin.  The yellow perch is native of North America.

·      Posterity: (noun) all future generations of people