Speaker
The speaker is not identified by name or description anywhere in the verse. In the absence of such identifying information, it is natural and appropriate to assume the speaker is intended to be a person representing the poet. From that assumption can be extrapolated the perception that the speaker is an African American male and thus the content of the poem should be interpreted through the culture and history of that perspective.
The opening line indicates the speaker has an awareness of economic inequality and is empathetic about it, indicating he was not born into privilege. The language throughout, but especially in the second stanza, is of an elevated and formal standard which suggests that he is well-educated.
By the time the identity of the titular father to which the lines are written is revealed, the speaker is also revealed as deeply spiritual. He believes in a supreme deity that created mankind. He also expresses his believe that this deity created free will as a means for humans to engage in social mobility. This particular expression of faith cements the notion that he considers slavery an offense to God since it is a man-made attempt to obstruct His holy plan for creation.
The Father
The natural tendency in the absence of context would be to assume from the title that the poem is about the actual parental figure of the speaker. It is not until the third stanza that the speaker begins to address the father through pronouns like “you” and “your.” It will take until the fourth stanza to fully affirm that the father being addressed is not parent, but God the Father.
The speaker is making a direct address to God about the wisdom of His creating free will which allows one to aspire and work together an improvement of the heritage into which they are born. The reference to free will as “no fairy gift” is an assertion of recognition that the greatness of God is not that of performing miracles. God is deity and not a magician or sorcerer and the difference lies in His gifts to mankind being equally applied even if not equally exercised.
God is also compared to a boss who treats His workers with inherent respect and grants them a fair wage based on their labor rather than production. The wages of free will He offers are equitable across the breadth of humanity, but the actual earnings of each individual are dependent upon their commitment to labor. The speaker’s concept of God thus becomes a rather naïve once based substantially upon capitalist economic ideology.
