making inferences
... can go -- there is not enough information to make a convincing case for calling him an alcoholic. Same thing with the idea of "abuse." The poem never says the father beats the son. It says he holds the child's wrist and that the mother is frowning and the kid's ear scrapes the buckle. However, the battered -- refers to the father's knuckle and not the child and the beating is "beating time" as in keeping time to music. None of these details allow us to infer that the child is beaten or abused. Some of them suggest that there is tension (frowning mother) and some hint at a carelessness or lack of gentleness. But there is nothing that makes it clear that there is abuse. Thus endeth the lesson...