Throughout The Gift, Lee chooses to showcase the bond between a parent and their child. The title chosen was a basis for a metaphor that is seen at the end of the poem. It wasn't truly a gift, however, it represented the safety and protection a father always has over his child. "Metal that will bury me" (27) "Death visited here!" (31). These two lines represent the insecurity and fear of a child when an accident occurs. However, Lee wants to show how a parent protects a child both mentally and physically when the speaker says he "did not hold that shard between my fingers and think" (26) and "did not lift up my wound and cry" (30).
Typically, Asian household share a great sense of family and belonging. I believe Lee is showing this aspect of Asian life perfectly by showing how calm and caring the father deals with the situation. Also, in asian families, respect and look up to their elders. You can clearly see this when Young makes the speaker talk about his father in such an admirable way. The speaker shows his father with a "lovely face" (3) and having "two measures of tenderness" (10). With Lee's ethnicity, I believe he wanted to describe how Asian families function.
