Both “Daddy,” by Sylvia Plath, and “My Papa’s Waltz,” by Theodore Roethke are poems centering around the parent-child relationship between the authors and their fathers. At first glance, Plath’s “Daddy” pivots around an abusive father, and Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” revolves around the joy filled evening of play that the narrator and his father participate in. While Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” and Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” parent-child relationships are seemingly quite different, once one explores additional ways to interpret the parent-child relationships in both poems, it may be suggested that the poems are much more alike than assumed at first glance, depending on the reader’s analysis. “Daddy” and “My Papa’s Waltz” are two poems
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Plath illustrates this figurative interpretation when she writes: “At twenty I tried to die / And get back, back, back to you” (58-59). These lines imply that while Plath was clearly abused by her father, she does not blame him for the abuse, and instead blames herself for continuously craving the dark. This is evident when Plath tells of her marrying a man similar to her father when she writes “I made a model of you / A man in black with a Meinkampf look . . . / And I said I do, I do.” (64-67), and when she …show more content…
Other imagery in “My Papa’s Waltz” supports this interpretation, for example Roethke writes “My mother’s countenance / Could not unfrown itself” (7-8), and “The hand that held my wrist / Was battered on one knuckle;” (9-10) which could be considered abuse because the father is holding his son at the wrist, while it usually could be assumed that if a father was merely dancing with his son, he would hold his son by the hand, not the wrist. Roethke also mentioned that the boy’s hand “Was battered on one knuckle;” (10), which would imply that the father’s hand is battered at the knuckle because he has been punching something, probably his
Plath illustrates this figurative interpretation when she writes: “At twenty I tried to die / And get back, back, back to you” (58-59). These lines imply that while Plath was clearly abused by her father, she does not blame him for the abuse, and instead blames herself for continuously craving the dark. This is evident when Plath tells of her marrying a man similar to her father when she writes “I made a model of you / A man in black with a Meinkampf look . . . / And I said I do, I do.” (64-67), and when she …show more content…
Other imagery in “My Papa’s Waltz” supports this interpretation, for example Roethke writes “My mother’s countenance / Could not unfrown itself” (7-8), and “The hand that held my wrist / Was battered on one knuckle;” (9-10) which could be considered abuse because the father is holding his son at the wrist, while it usually could be assumed that if a father was merely dancing with his son, he would hold his son by the hand, not the wrist. Roethke also mentioned that the boy’s hand “Was battered on one knuckle;” (10), which would imply that the father’s hand is battered at the knuckle because he has been punching something, probably his