“Father Returning Home” is a poem in conflict with itself. The poem says one thing but, in fact, ends up doing something quite different.

The key to understanding the design of the poem is to be aware of the narrative frame. The poem subtly insinuates the frame. The poem, for instance, would be different if it began with three simple words: “I can imagine.” Rather, the poem begins with an immediacy that allows the speaker to become part of his father’s world. The central character is not the sad and lonely father struggling to provide for a family that has drifted emotionally from him. The central character is one of the father’s grown children, one of those “sullen” (Line 20) kids lurking behind their bedroom doors while the father prepares his late dinner The child is now grown and evidently struggling with guilt over never acknowledging his father when they were growing up.

Years later, through the vehicle of the poem, that grown child finally bonds emotionally, and imaginatively with his lonely father. In the imaginative projection that the poem records, the grown child achieves the kind of compassion and empathy he lacked as a child there behind his bedroom door.