(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.…
In "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke, the speaker is describing his abusive relationship with his alcoholic father. His father's "waltz" is a metaphor for his drunken beatings. The poem depicts a father chasing his son around the house, while the mother stands and watches dejectfully, unable to stop her husband from his relentless "waltzing."…
Imagine being a child that loves their father unconditionally. That love is more powerful than thinking of the harm he does is doing to you. “My Papa's Waltz” by Theodore Roethke can be interpreted in multiple ways. The poem could be interpreted as a parent abusing his child due to alcoholism or a child dancing with his father. In the poem, Theodore reminisces about his youth of tangled emotions of fear and unconditional love towards his father besides the imperfections his father has.…
Katy Boozer Mrs. Geren English 102-48 March 17, 2017 A Father and Son After first reading and analyzing the poem titled "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke, a negative or positive feeling could be shaped. Because of a portion of the words in this poem, it is reasonable why this sort of response could be evoked. Basic speculation allows one to better comprehend what Roethke may truly mean. Throughout the poem, the rhyme scheme, mood, figurative language, the tone of the author, and the possible alternate interpretations of parts of the poem create a story about a young boy and his father in a loving voice.…
The three pieces of literature, The Poem, ‘’Daystar’’ by African American poet Rita Dove, ‘’Those Winter Sundays’ by African American poet Robert Hayden and the story’’ At Home’’, by Anton Chekhov are all significant to the extent that they convey similar ideas or themes. The three are thus closely related in some ways that come to life with an incisive analysis and consideration of the three. The idea of family relations is, therefore, an idea or theme that cuts across all the three pieces of literature though in slightly various ways as demonstrated by an analytical consideration of each of the three works. Each piece of work, from the two poems, ‘’Daystar’’ by Rita Dove, ‘’Those Winter Sundays’’ by Robert Hayden and the short story ‘’At…
The poem, "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke, depict a conflict between a father and a son. The son portray his father as a drunk person, and his relationship with his father wasn't a lovely one. They usually waltz, a smooth dance that require close position. The son usually smell whiskey in his father's breath, which mean that the son was somewhat tall or his father short enough. Though they didn't have a close relationship, Roethke never state that he didn't like his father, whether he stated that he hung on like death.…
While the subject of “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke has spurred passionate academic debate from professors, scholars, and students alike, the imagery, syntax, and diction of the poem clearly support the interpretation that Roethke writes “My Papa’s Waltz” to describe the relationship between him and his father, and a memory they shared together. Roethke made the poem sound as if had two completely different meaning behind it. For example, it can mean that a father and his child are horsing around before bedtime or it can mean that an intoxicated father abuses his child. He wanted to see what us, the audience, had to say when reading the poem.…
To start off with, the theme is shown in the father and son’s relationship. Their relationship is not the ordinary father son relationship we see in our ordinary everyday life because the son would take care of the alcoholic father and make sure he was pleased. An example would be the son would wait up until he saw his dad’s headlights then he would put in his father’s favorite tape in the stereo then his father would pass out at the table while the son slept under the table by his father’s feet. Thinking of a single father, one would think the father would take care of the son and care for him in every way a child would require but that is the complete opposite of this father and son’s relationship. In the reading it says, “ The days after, my father would feel so guilty that he would tell me stories as a means of apology,”(Alexie 26) meaning the father knew he was acting like the child making his son take care of him while he was being a selfish father.…
This imagery shows the intensity of his father’s condition; it shows how much his father relied on alcohol. Sanders goes on to describe his father as “so playful and competent and kind when sober” but “when drunk, our father was clearly in his wrong mind. He became a stranger, as fearful to us as any graveyard lunatic, not quite frothing at the mouth but fierce enough, quick tempered, explosive” (92). Dialogue is also used in the essay to demonstrate a purpose and prove the author’s point. His father’s alcoholism created an environment of rage and fear for the family.…
His first encounter with his intoxicated father was described as he was stumbling around the house, slamming doors, and thumping into things. As the author uses these action words to describes the noises that was heard that night, it is also allowing the audience to experience the fear a young boy, such as the author, was experiencing himself. As the author’s father encounters a near death experience, forcing him to become sober for the next fifteen years, he describes it as an almost blissful time. The father became more content, playful, and a stronger sense of a father in comparison to himself while drunk. As the author and his siblings grow older, the parents decide to move away to start a new, sober life.…
“Death of a Young Son by Drowning” by Margaret Atwood tells the very vivid story of a mother’s son’s death. The tone used by the author was reflective, happy, and yet still sorrowful. Atwood sort of describes the son’s death as an adventure, giving the poem a happy and optimistic tone. She uses words that make it seem almost like a journey, for instance in line 4 she uses “voyage,” in line 25 “long trip,” and line 13 “reckless adventurer,” that make it seem almost exciting. There is also a shift in tone in lines 16-18 when she says, “There was an accident; the air locked, he was hung in the river like a heart.…
“The whiskey on his breath could make a small boy dizzy;”(cite) This line in the poem describes to the reader how drunk the father was, but how it did not matter to the young boy that his father smelled of whiskey so strong. The lines that followed tells of how the young lad holds on “like death” to his father not to lose his grip during the dance. The dance was rough for the young boy, with his father missing steps and knocking things over. “Such waltzing was not easy.…
Last year, I was assigned a poet for a project in English class. I would have to research this poet, memorize and explicate some of the poems, and learn about the styles and themes. I was assigned Theodore Roethke. The project, at first, seemed pretty boring to me, and I dreaded it. While immersing myself in Roethke’s life, I unexpectedly became interested in what I began to read.…
While “My Papa’s Waltz” and “Those Winter Sundays” differ in the attitudes and tones of their speakers, they are alike in the complex family relationships and themes of familial love, masculinity and sacrifice, and nostalgic youth that they communicate to the reader. A close-reading of the poems, with special attention paid to the speakers and the ideas they are trying to get across, can end up telling far more about Theodore Roethke and Robert Hayden than they may like. The speaker in “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke is a small boy having a grand old time waltzing with his father in the kitchen before bed. His father is a little rough with him, keeping time on his noggin and accidently scraping his ear against his belt buckle on every…
At first glance this poem seems to be about a young boy who is abused by his alcoholic Father. After breaking this poem into different pieces it is only then that the reader is able to see how Roethke applied the Psychology Criticism to explain that the waltz is not a dance, but it is symbolic of the young boy’s relationship with his Father. The mental process of perception from this small boy dominates as a central theme.…