New Criticism Applied to My Father’s Hats

New criticism involves the concept of analyzing literary works based entirely on the content of the text, disregarding the intention of the author or the reader’s subjective interpretations. In order to properly analyze a text using the new criticism format, the text must be broken down via diction, denotations and connotations. Heavily relying on hidden metaphors and self produced diction appropriate for the poem, My Father’s Hats depicts an idea of a narrator searching through the old collections of his/her deceased father’s belongings while struggling with their new doubts in religion. In using new criticism theory, we attempted to be educated readers to essentially fulfill the roles of the ideal audience (definition: a reader who is capable of understanding every intention, thought and idea written in the text). Being careful to ignore both intentional and affective fallacies, and leaving our preconceived notions behind, this is our attempt to apply the new criticism theory to this poem.

Religion acts as a dominant theme throughout this poem, with metaphors acting as the vehicle for the underlying theme. At the beginning of the poem, the narrator is searching through his religion for answers to his father’s death. This is implied by different metaphors, such as the reference to “Sunday mornings” which instills the idea of the seventh, or Sabbath, day as a Biblical reference. The narrator, while standing in the father’s dark closet, reaches higher into an unknown realm, grasping for something tangible. This metaphor continues with the idea that the narrator is searching for something real and pertinent, like a god. Another easily identified reference towards religion would be when the narrator describes “touching the yellow fruit”, which alludes to the Genesis chapter in the Bible, when Adam and Eve doubted their God and took the forbidden fruit.

The text also supports the idea for new words to be incorporated into the poem without seeming out of place. With such a strong sense of underlying religious tones, the two words solely found in this poem, “hymning” and “godsome”, un-phase the reader. Fabricated to fit their role, “hymning” is used as a verb for the wind, and also works as a metaphor for both the hymns sung at church and the natural hum of life. “Godsome” features later in the poem, and is used as an adjective to describe the air of the narrator’s memory, while also implies the religious draft of the Heavenly spirit.

The narrator’s father is only defined in the title. However, throughout the poem, his/her father is eluded to in four places by the use of possession form. The term “his” extends to his closet, scent, hair and fabulous sleep. The initial three references towards the father are physical references, which spark memories from the narrator. These memories are shaped with the religious metaphors. The final reference to the father is not physical; “his fabulous sleep” near the end of the poem alludes to the narrator’s father’s death.
The text supports that the narrator is losing his faith in God after the death of his/her father. The poem mostly consists of memories until the last three lines.
“…as now, thinking of his fabulous
sleep, I stand on this canyon floor
and watch light slowly close
on water I’m not sure is there.”

Instead of continuing to be fueled with strong Biblical metaphors, the last three lines close with a sense of doubt and disappointment from the narrator. The metaphor of a canyon floor differs extremely with the metaphor of reaching and climbing a tree like initially expressed in the beginning of the poem. Instead, the canyon floor is used as a metaphor to describe the narrator being more grounded and lonely, not searching and reaching for something higher than him/her. The text suggests that the narrator has hit a low point, and is beginning to lose his faith in religion, or “water”, which the narrator is not sure exists anymore. After feeling the comfort of the “godsome air” from peeling through memories, the text supports that at the end of the poem, the narrator is confronted with the fact that his/her father is no longer there. The narrator is expressively viewing his comfort of religion fade away with the light since his/her father’s death.

The theme of My Father’s Hats is the narrator is coping with death, both his/her father’s death and the narrator’s questioning of faith. The tone of this poem is reminiscent and sullen. The narrator’s voice is filled with grace and acceptance, but yet at the same time, can be defined as confused. He/She is on a metaphorical journey to understanding why religion no longer makes sense after the death of his/her father. The text in the poem is comprised of metaphors and symbolism to allude to both religion and the father, and to the narrator’s true inner conflict at the end.



Analysis by: Ashley Nelson and Amanda Hankins


"My Father's Hats"
Mark Irwin

Sunday mornings I would reach
high into his dark closet while standing
on a chair and tiptoeing reach
higher, touching, sometimes fumbling
the soft crowns and imagine
I was in a forest, wind hymning
through pines, where the musky scent
of rain clinging to damp earth was
his scent I loved, lingering on
bands, leather, and on the inner silk
crowns where I would smell his
hair and almost think I was being
held, or climbing a tree, touching
the yellow fruit, leaves whose scent
was that of clove in the godsome
air, as now, thinking of his fabulous
sleep, I stand on this canyon floor
and watch light slowly close
on water I can't be sure is there.

from New Letters, Volume 66, Number 3, 2000 New Letters
Copyright 2000 by The Curators of the University of Missouri.

URL: http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/098.html