Re: My Father's House / gjd (for new comments)

On Sun, 9 Feb 2025 14:12:44 +0000, George J. Dance wrote:

On Fri, 7 Feb 2025 20:15:36 +0000, HarryLime wrote:
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On Fri, 7 Feb 2025 19:31:54 +0000, George J. Dance wrote:
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On Tue, 4 Feb 2025 11:29:25 +0000, W.Dockery wrote:
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George J. Dance wrote:

>
My Father's House
>
This is my father's house, although
The man died thirteen years ago.
They said it would be quite all right
To take a drive to see it now.
>
Dad laid those grey foundation blocks
And built the whole thing (from a box),
Toiling after each full day's work.
I helped, though I was only six.
>
Look, here's the back door I would use
And here's where I'd remove my shoes
To enter; there I'd leave my things
And, when allowed, climb up these stairs.
>
In this room I'd wash many a dish,
Gaze out this window, and I'd wish
To be so many other places.
(Wishy-washy? Oh, I guess!)
>
Outside, the garden that he grew
Where I would work the summers through,
While watching my friends run and play
Mysterious games I never knew.
>
That room's all changed; oh, where is it,
The one chair I was let to sit?
(For boys can be such filthy things.)
Which, the corner where boys were put?
>
Oh ... down that hall there is a room
Where I'd be shut (as in a tomb)
After the meal, to make no noise,
To read or play alone, and then
>
Lights out: in bed by nine each night,
Some nights wanting to pee with fright,
Face and pyjama bottoms down
As for my father's belt I'd wait.
>
Oh, if I were a millionaire
I'd buy my father's house, and there
I'd build a bonfire, oh so high
Its flames would light up all the air.
>
~~
George J. Dance
from Logos and other logoi, 2021

>
Here it is, MFH.

>
Thank you for reposting this poem of mine, Will. While it's true that it
has been discussed a lot over the years, it also true that at least one
person wants to discuss it now; and this would be the appropriate place
to move those comments, rather than leaving them scattered all over the
group. So let's start with this one:
>
On Mon, 3 Feb 2025 16:15:27 +0000, Michael Monkey Peabrain (MPP) aka
"HarryLime" wrote:

On Mon, 3 Feb 2025 13:06:00 +0000, George J. Dance wrote:

Why do you lie so much, George?
(That's a rhetorical question, as you've already intimated that your
pathological lying stems from you having been abused as a child.)

>
No, Lying Michael: I have never said, or even "intimated" (!) that I was
pathological, lying, or
"abused as a child".

>

You wrote a "mostly autobiographical" poem detailing the abuses you
suffered as a child, George.  And you're demonstrating your pathological
obsession with lying in your trio of denials, listed above.

https://www.novabbs.com/arts/article.php?id=15801&group=rec.arts.poems
>
HarryLiar has manufactured yet another fake quote; I have never called
this poem "mostly autobiographical" or autobiographical in many ways. I
have distinctly told him in the past that, while some of the speaker's
memories were based on my own childhood experiences, not all of them
were; I was using them in a work of creative fiction, not an
autobiography of any kind. So he lied and made up a fake quote to
support his lie.

>
I haven't the time to go searching for the exact quote, but you had
initially maintained that it was "mostly autobiographical" or "mostly
based on your childhood," or similar words expressing the same thing.

>
If you don't have time, get your NastyGoon to search for it. In this
case I have to call your bullshit. You claimed the poem was
"autobiographical", and I tried to explain to you the difference between
creative literature and autobiography - repeatedly. You believe it's
autobiographical because you said it was autobiographical, and for no
other reason.

George, George, George... no autobiography is 100% accurate.  People
present *their* interpretation of the various events comprising their
lives.  And everyone's interpretation is colored by various factors. This is why your perception of Dr. NancyGene's and my analyses of your
poem strike you as personal attacks, whereas from my perspective the
*only* way to examine a semi-autobiographical poem on child abuse is
consider the speaker and the poet as being essentially the same
individual.
In fact, Karla's oft-quoted adage aside, one can *never* fully separate
the two.
For instance, all of the characters in any author's fictional novel are
going to represent some aspect of the author.  Every poem stems from its
author's imagination... regardless of what external persons and/or
events might have inspired it.  Every literary work is similar to a
dream construct in that regard; and like a dream construct, can be
analyzed by a psychologist, a literary critic, or even the average
reader.  Since "My Father's House" was based to a large extent on your
own childhood experiences, it literally begs for a psychoanalytical
reading.
Despite your claims of taking the reader through Little George's home
(with the same floor plan as its real life counterpart) on a
room-by-room basis, you jump from the kitchen to the garden.  I am
guessing that you'd originally written the garden stanza to come first
within the body of the narrative, but had later switched it with the
kitchen stanza based on the severity of the (potentially perceived)
abuses. In this stanza, Little George is forced to spend his summers
working in the garden -- while enviously watching the neighborhood
children.  Because Little George describes their games as "mis
How autobiographical is your poem?  Let's see.
In the poem "Little George" states that the house came in a box, and
that he helped his father assemble it,  You had said that in real life,
your house came in a box, and that you helped your father assemble it.
Little George tells how he was made to use the back door, had to take
off his shoes (and things), and wait for permission to enter.  In real
life, you had to use the back door, and remove your shoes before
entering as well.  I don't recall whether you also had to wait for
permission.
You have also stated that the house in the poem is laid out exactly your
real life childhood house, and that you have intentionally chosen to
take the reader through this house room by room.  You have also said
that you intentionally chose to present each room along with a
description of a (possibly abusive) memory associated with it.
The first room in Little George's house is the kitchen.  Little George
associates this room with having to wash dishes, while looking out the
window and wishing that he was some other place.  In real life, you were
also made to wash dishes.  This is not uncommon.  Most children 50 years
ago were given chores to perform.  I had chores to do as well.  The
difference is that I was paid a weekly allowance for doing them, and had
the option of quitting my "job" at my discretion.
In spite of your claim that you were taking the reader on a tour of
Little George's house (which has the same floorplan as your real life
childhood home), the narrative jumps from the kitchen to the garden. I'm guessing that the garden stanza originally came before the kitchen
one, but that you later rearranged the stanzas to present the supposed
"abuses" in order of severity (as you have recently stated).  Little
George spends his summers working in the garden, all the while envious
of the neighborhood children who are free to play at their will.  The
fact that Little George calls their games "mysterious" and laments that
he "never knew" them implies both that he had to spend the entire day
doing chores and that he was not allowed to join the other children in
their games.
Was George Dance also forced to work in the garden all day/denied the
fun of playing with the other children?  I don't know.  I'm guessing
that he was, because many children had gardens that they tended every
day.  I certainly did.  I would spend an hour or so tending my garden
every morning -- along with my mother and siblings.  I loved my garden
and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  I was also allowed to play with
the local kids who would drop by on an almost daily basis.
Little George's next stanza opens with the line "That room's all
changed" implying either that the garden is a room, or that he is taking
the reader on a walking tour of his childhood house.  This appears to be
another problem caused by switching the kitchen and garden stanzas'
position in the narrative.  I'm assuming that it's the living room,
although Little George neither specifies nor gives us any other clue
than that it contains a chair on which he is forbidden to sit.  IIRC,
George Dance stated that while he was also barred from using the living
room furniture, the parental description of boys as "filthy things" was
derived from the life of another boy that he knew.
Last stop on the tour is the bedroom.  Little George is sent there after
dinner every night where he feels as if he is trapped within a tomb --
alone and forced to pass the time quietly playing by himself.  "Each
night" at 9pm, Little George was forced to turn out the lights, and lie
face down in bed with his pajama pants pulled down and his bare behind
awaiting his father's belt.  George Dance hasn't said that this bedtime
ritual occurred on a daily basis in real life, but has intimated that
the "spankings" (which he refused to call "whippings" even though the
blows were delivered with a belt) frequently took place.
So, pretty much the entire "flashback" portion of the poem was based on
real events from George Dance's childhood.  Some of the events may have
been slightly exaggerated, or enhanced, for dramatic purposes, and one
item was interpolated from another boy's stories about his own
childhood.  This leaves the "modern" portions of the narrative which
frame the flashback portion.  In the modern portion, it is strongly
implied (by George Dance's own explanation) that the speaker is
receiving some form of psychiatric care, and is probably residing in a
mental hospital. He has permission to leave the grounds during the day,
and (unrealistically) to visit his childhood home that is now occupied
by another family.  "Grownup George" ends the poem by expressing his
wish that he would like to burn his father's house to the ground.
The framing story, is obviously fictional insofar as real life George
Dance is not living in a mental institution, and is not (to the best of
my knowledge) undergoing psychiatric care.  It is, however, reasonable
to conclude that the author thinks of his childhood home as *his
father's house* and that he still harbors some anger toward his father
(even though his father is presumed to be deceased).
In short, the bulk of the narrative is based on real life memories from
its author's childhood.
Why then all the fuss about my having called it "autobiographical"? It's a typical Straw Man argument intended to divert the discussion from
examining the psychological aspects of the narrative, and to falsely
represent an attempt to provide an in-depth analysis of the poem as a
personal attack upon himself.
Good old paranoid, perpetually persecuted George.

Eventually, you specified that only *one* passage in the portions of the
poem relating to your childhood had been inspired by something else.
IIRC it was the use of the term "boys can be such filthy things."

>
More bullshit from HarryLiar. All the passages in the poem are about a
grown man returning to his childhood home, and his thoughts while he was
there. None of that was "inspired" by anything in my life.

That is a flat out lie, George.  You have already noted (numerous times)
that many of the events from the speaker's past have their basis in your
own childhood.  And, since you, as a writer, are also a grown man
reflecting on his childhood past, the fictional framing story portions
of your poem have a good deal of basis in reality as well,

But why bicker over words.

>
Because words have meanings: when you claim the poem is
"autobiographical", you're not just using a "word" but making a false
claim about the poem (and dishonestly trying to support your claim by
pretending that's a word I'd used to describe it).

I have not said that it was "autobiographical," George.  I have clearly
said that it was "largely autobiographical," "mostly autobiographical,"
"semi-autobiographical," "quasi-autobiographical," and the like.  That
is not a misrepresentation in any way, as you did have a house-in-a-box,
which you did help your father build, and which you did have to enter
through the backdoor, etc.

If you now wish to deny that any other portions of the poem were based
on your actual childhood experiences, please do so.

>
Well, let's look at what happens in the poem.
S1 - the speaker revisits the house (after getting permission from
someone unspecified).
S2 - the speaker remembers his father building the house.
S3 - the speaker enters the back door, and remembers having to always
have had to use that door.
S4 - the speaker goes into the kitchen, and recalls having to wash
dishes.
S5 - the speaker looks out the kitchen window at the garden, and recalls
having to work in it when he'd rather be playing.
S6 - the speaker goes into the living room, and recalls not being
allowed to sit  wherever he chose.
S7 - the speaker thinks about his bedroom (but does not go there) and
remembers being sent there to be alone after dinner until bedtime.
S8 - the speaker continues to think about his bedroom, and remembers
having an  early bedtime and being subject to corporal punishment.
S9 - the speaker wishes he could burn the house down.
>
None of those events happened to me, as I've told you repeatedly.

You're playing semantic games again, George.  The only reason that your
claiming that none of them happened, is because your poem isn't
technically describing the actual events, but the memories of a man who
is *walking through his childhood home" -- and, since you have never
returned to your childhood home, nothing that happens in the narrative
applies to your life.  IOW: Even though the speaker's childhood memories
may be similar to (or, in most instances identical to) your own, they
are not happening in the poem.  The only thing that is happening in the
poem is that the speaker is walking through the rooms of his childhood
home -- which is something that you have never done.
Why you seem embarrassed to admit that events which the speaker
remembers are similar/identical to your own can only stem from your
resistance to accepting the critical examinations/psychoanalyses of Dr.
NancyGene and myself.

The poem is meant to be a dramatic monologue, in the style of Browning
(His "My Last Duchess" is a good example), meant to get inside the
psychology of a  speaker or persona.

>
You are defaming Mr. Browning, sirrah!

>
Not at all. Calling "My Last Duchess" an autobiographical poem would
have defamed him; if you did that, you'd be accusing him of murdering
his wife. (Do you think "My Last Duchess" was autobiographical?)

You said that you'd written it "in the style of [Mr.] Browning.  Your
have written your poem in a singsong fashion similar to that of a
children's book (and not a particularly good one).  "My Last Duchess"
was written specifically to draw the reader's attention *away from* the
poem's rhymed/metered format.  I.e., your poem's style is the direct
*opposite* Mr. Browning's.

The speaker may have experienced
his childhood as "abuse" - HarryLiar calls it that but the speaker
doesn't. The memories of it, though, have stayed on his mind, and he
wants to get rid of those memories (symbolized by burning down the house
at the end).

>
If the speaker (who we both know is George Dance)

>
No; we both know that's a claim you (in your "Pendragon" sock) made
about the poem; and precisely what we're discussing. You actually
claimed that I broke into this house and tried to burn it down. Since I
don't "know" things that aren't true, I don't "know" that; only you
"know" it, simply because you said it previously.

I have never claimed that you broke into, or attempted to burn down, any
house, George.  I might have said that you harbor fantasies of doing so
-- and if I haven't, I'm saying it now.  But I have never accused you of
breaking and entering and attempted arson.

doesn't consider it
abuse, he should take the opportunity to explain why.

>
Why should he? The speaker of the poem is not writing his
"autobiography" either; he's just remembering things, and sticking to
the facts.

In order to present the narrative in such a way that the readers are
left to make their own call as to whether the speaker had been subjected
to childhood abuse.  You did say (immediately below) that "(I)t's
deliberately left to the reader to decide if the speaker had actually
been abused by his father or not."
Since the flashback portion of the narrative is made up of
"abusive-seeming experiences," the reader isn't presented with any
alternative options.
Further, since the speaker expresses a desire to burn his father's house
to the ground, he has *not* "just remembering things, and sticking to
the facts."  He is also revealing his pent up feelings of anger
regarding said events which tells us in no uncertain terms that he feels
as if he had been abused.
And last, but not least, the fact that he refers to it as his Father's
house (as opposed to his house, or his childhood home), shows an
uncommon (to the point of morbidity) detachment from both his home and
the events of his past on his part.
In short, you have not left it up to the reader to decide in any way. You have presented it in such a fashion as to blame the speaker's adult
psychological problems (and possible institutionalization) on the abuses
he'd suffered as a boy.

It's deliberately left to the reader to decide if the speaker actually
had been abused by his father or not. I did structure it, for effect,
from the least to the most abusive-seeming experiences; from having to
use a back door and remove his shoes to enter the house, to doing
household chores, to doing garden work in the summertime, to not being
allowed to use some of the furniture, to having to stay inside alone at
night and be in bed early, to being subjected to corporal punishment.

>
JFC! George.  There's no question that any of the above were forms of
abuse.

>
No, HarryLiar: having to use a back door, and remove one's shoes; having
to wash dishes and do garden work; not being allowed on all the
furniture; having an early bedtime; and receiving corporal punishment
from one's father; are not all unquestionably abusive.

That is a matter of opinion.  IMHO, the only one that is not abusive, is
having a 9 o'clock bedtime.
Having to use the back door is emotionally abusive.  Traditionally, one
makes one's servants enter and exit in this manner (reserving the front
door for themselves and their guests).  By making Little George enter by
the back door, his parents are relegating him to the position of a
menial (which, based on other events in the narrative, he is).  This
negatively impacts on Little George's sense of self worth.  His parents
don't treat him as an equal, as a family member, or even as a guest. They treat him as they would the hired help.
Not only does Little George have to remove his shoes at the back door,
but he has to present himself for inspection, remove any other garnets
("things") deemed too filthy to bring inside, and receive permission to
enter.  Again, the psychological damage that this does to one's
self-worth inestimable.  No wonder Little George refers to it as "My
Father's House."  He doesn't have permission to enter it as he pleases. How can a child feel that it is *his* house, when he is subjected to
such conditions before entering.
As to his chores of doing dishes and working in the garden (as well as
any others that have not been mentioned), it is clear from the poem that
Little George is performing both against his will.  In the kitchen, he
is wishing that he was somewhere else; while in the garden he is
bemoaning the fact that he cannot play with the other children.  Forcing
a child to perform chores is a form of abuse.
Not being allowed on the furniture is another for of
emotional/psychological abuse in the same vein as forcing him to enter
(upon permission) by the back door.  Little George is being forced to
view the furniture as being too good for him (but good enough for his
parents and their guests).  Once again, Little George is being treated
as a second class citizen (or, more specifically, as a menial) in his
Father's house.
His being sent directly to his room after dinner (or did he clean the
dinner dishes as well?) can only give Little George the message that his
parents do not want him around.  He is to be unseen and unheard --
basically removed entirely from their evenings.  This too, is in keeping
with his position as a symbolic menial, as servants are expected to
retire to their quarters when their services are not needed.
As to corporal punishment, it may not have been viewed as abusive at the
time, but it is viewed as such today.  I personally feel that it depends
upon the situation, and the severity of the physical punishment. However whipping a six-year old boy (Little George says that he was
"only six" in the second stanza) on his bared bottom with a leather belt
would be considered abusive under any circumstances regardless of the
time.  This is the sort of corporal punishment that was meted out to
criminals in the public square with the leather belt making an
inexpensive substitute for a whip.
And, once again, I can only stress that the idea of a six-year old boy,
lying in bed so frightened that he is in danger of peeing himself, with
his bared bottom exposed while awaiting his father's arrival with a belt
paints such a harrowing picture of a child broken in spirit that I find
it too deeply disturbing for words.

That poor little boy had a bleak, loveless, existence filled with
verbal, emotional, and physical abuses.

>
He may think he does, though that's not what he says. He's just relating
the facts as he remembers them. (Since he doesn't exist outside the
poem, there's no point in quibble over what he thinks; that's why I left
all that to the reader).

Again, he strongly intimates that by referring to it as his Father's
house, and by expressing his desire to burn it to the ground.

Adding them together like that, it's easy enough to conclude that the
father had been abusive; but I'll point out that all of those events
were things children commonly experienced 50-60 years ago, and that none
of them were commonly considered abusive.

>
Um... I was a child 50-60 years ago, and my father was physically
abusive (for a two year period after my mother's death) -- and I find
your story to be horrifying.

>

Normal children may occasionally have been physically punished for
tracking dirt into the house, and such, but look at your poem... the
other children are outside playing while Little George is stuck inside
the house doing chores.

>
I'm sure many "normal children" had to do chores when they'd rather be
playing with their friends. That wasn't only my experience, but that of
most of my friends, and they all seemed "normal" enough to me.

But Little George makes it clear that he "never knew" the "mysterious
games" the other children were playing.  This clearly implies that he
*never* knew such games as Hide and Seek, Blind Man's Bluff, Tag, or any
other game that involves other children.  Little George didn't just have
a few chores to perform.  He had nonstop chores all day long -- so many
chores that he never had the opportunity to join the other children in
their play.  Had he joined them, their games would no longer be
"mysterious" or unknown (he "never knew" what they were).
--