Comparing Ballad Of Birmingham And My Papa's Waltz

In class, we reviewed two poems, Ballad of Birmingham and My Papa’s Waltz. From a first glance, these poems couldn’t be anymore different. Besides, the fact that these poems have different topics, the poems differ in word choice and imagery.

In My Papa’s Waltz, the author, Theodore Roethke, uses phrases such as, “palm caked hard by mud” (My Papa’s Waltz, Roethke) and “every step you missed” (My Papa’s Waltz, Roethke) to paint the picture of a drunk father who cannot keep his balance. The author uses words such as battered, beat, and romped to maybe allude to his father’s violent guilt rather than his drunken innocence. Whereas, in Ballad of Birmingham, the author, Dudley Randall, uses phrases such as “bathed rose petal sweet” (Ballad of Birmingham, Randall) and “drawn white gloves on her small brown hands” (Ballad of Birmingham, Randall), so that we associate the child with sweet, pure innocence, as the victim. Roethke’s character could be perceived as the attacker, while Randall’s character is perceived as the victim. However different these premises seem, they do have much in common. …show more content…
Ballad of Birmingham tells the story of a mother protecting her child from the violence of the Freedom March, while, My Papa’s Waltz tells the story of a child trying to protect his mother from a maybe violent encounter by stopping his father. Both poems also have a darker, saddened tone. My Papa’s Waltz created a darkened tone when the father was introduced with whiskey on his breath that caused his son to held on “like death” (My Papa’s Waltz, Roethke). Ballad of Birmingham created a darker tone by introducing a violent Freedom March and offering a more “peaceful” solution, which led to a child’s tragic