Analysis Of The Waking By Theodore Roethke

In the villanelle poem The Waking, the author Theodore Roethke uses a villanelle, consisting of five tersest and a quatrain with two rhymes that are used repeatedly throughout the entire poem. Figurative language, rhythm, rhyme and imagery are used to help covey the meaning of this particular poem; about a man who is waking up from a deep sleep realizing that to discover great success, failure has to be achieved as well.
The first stanza is about a man who is waking up and he is realizing that he cannot find his fate in the things he fears. Through out the poem he says “I learn by going where I have to go.” This line is the third line in the poem, therefore it is repeated in every other stanza. Each time it is said it adds more meaning to the poem. The first line is also repeated in every other stanza through out the poem, “I wake to sleep, and take my walking slow.” This line means that the man wakes up and still feels like he is asleep and he takes life slowly. …show more content…
“We think by feeling. What is there to know” This means that he believes people think through their feelings, what someone feels contributes to their thinking. The man feels his brain thinking, “my being dancing ear to ear”. The first line is then repeated in this stanza and it emphasizes what the poet is trying to say.
The next stanza is about the man walking through life slowly, and things that are near him. He does not realize what is there even thought it is right next to him. In this stanza the third line is repeated, and it has a new meaning. This line is still implying that the man is learning as he goes, but he is learning about what is around him,
In the fourth stanza is saying that the man realizes his life, and how it affects him. The worm is representation him coming up from the ground and seeing the outside world. “The light takes the tree” means that even at the lowest point in the mans life he will find