Dolor By Theodore Roethke

"Dolor" by is a poem about daily office life in the 1940s and how that office life has negatively effected those stuck in every day office life. "I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils, Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight," (Roethke lines 1-2) In the very first two lines of the poem the narrator paints the vivid picture of an office worker struggling with every day life. Early in the poem Roethke starts by using repetition giving the reader the beauty of a poem coupled with the sadness of everyday office life. Roethke wants the reader to feel the sadness oozing from the office worker and he does so with clever repetition, alliteration and strong personification. "Dolor" by Theorore Roethke is a sorrowful yet gripping poem that depicts …show more content…
He is proving a point, he whole idea he is attempting to get across is the dreaded repetition of a office job. With his clever writing he is showing the reader the truth. Every day waking up at the same time going to the same building seeing the same people,the same desk doing the same thing over again going home then hitting replay. He shows this with more than just the content of his poem but also the style it is written in. "Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma, Endless duplication of lives and objects. And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions, Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica." (Roethke lines 7-10) These few lines start to reveal the true feelings of the office worker. Cynthia Lee Kotana in her analysis of "Dolor" uses the metaphor of the office worker having the same feelings as the miners have, the office worker being trapped in the desk and the miner trapped in the mines. (Cynthia Lee Kotana para