Private Talk With Holly

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“That fish was so full of life and fought so hard for his freedom that I had to let him go back where he belonged, to live his own life” ( Felsen 4). In the article and poem, “A Private
Talk with Holly by Henry G. Felsen and “Wild Boy of the Road” by Karen Hesse, both writers focus on teens separating from their parents at a young age and leaving to live their own life.
While Felsen’s article focuses on “with or without a word or warning-turns a back on home and walks out into the grown-up world forever” (4), Hesse’s poem on the other hand focuses on the idea of “His mother is wishing he would come home” (3) “And I think, some day I'm going to walk there too, through New Mexico, and Arizona, and Nevada. Some day I’ll leave behind the wind, and …show more content…

The boy also says, “He couldn’t pay for anything, but Ma set him down and gave him biscuits and milk. He offered to work for his meal...Daddy asked if the boy wanted a bath, a haircut, a change of clothes before he moved on”, this shows the reader how his mother continues to empathize with the lost boy’s mom and cares for him while she is physically unable to. “In an instant, he was gone” (4). Felsen is faced with his daughter leaving him for college, and uses their fishing trip as an analogy to have this hard discussion about the topic with her. “And that was it. All of the sudden, good-bye forever to my big little girl”. Felsen is feeling the sudden rush of lost when his daughter admits she want to stay three, full years away at university. Suddenly the conversation is halted when Felsen caught the fish of his lifetime, but
Holly's words “ Oh, Dad, this is one you have to take home and have mounted for your study wall. It’s the biggest bass I've ever seen”. The author uses figurative language to show Holly being compared to the fish. Felsen released keeping the fish would be like making her stay