The Waking

A Walk Through Roethke’s Work “The Waking” by Theodore Roethke is very diverse. Instead of the poem referring to someone waking from sleeping, it refers to someone waking from several realizations about life. The poem is written in first person, therefore, the author is also the speaker. The setting of the poem could take place within a person’s figurative heart or mind. Roethke’s purpose was to show how we become more open-minded through the practice of metaphorically sleeping and waking. Roethke focuses on the life cycle itself, and how we come to a more aware and sophisticated state as we progress through life. This poem contains many figures of speech, including; paradox, assonance, internal rhyme, rhetorical questions, and refrains. He…

People can either enjoy life taking it slow, while others can be can completely indifferent to all it’s beauty, and thus taking life for granted. In the poem “Spring” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, it is communicated that spring is deceiving and it is shown that there is no point to life. “The Waking” by Theodore Roethke is more about going with the flow and appreciating life as is. The poems are similar because they both approach death and what is to come. Whereas, the two poems are different in…

The feeling of waking up from the coziness of the covers with no desire to leave for fear of the unavoidable goose bumps the morning air brings causes a person to dart for the heater, to feel the warmth while the coldness slowly fades away. This crisp feeling the cold brings makes the warmth that much more of a fulfilling sensation. The season that allows a person to no longer feel inconvenienced with their wardrobe but to have the satisfaction of the simple comfort of a knit sweater. The aroma…

movement” (Hughes 11). Hughes, here, creates an image of an animal running around a forest barely seen. Or an idea running around the brain which you cannot quite catch in its full form. Until, of course, he finally does. Interestingly, when he is finally able to see the fox, he watches it create prints in the snow. The fox, the thought, has made an imprint on his mind. This, therefore, leads to a total transformation of the mind, which Hughes foreshadows with “a body that is bold to come”…

waking moment passed with them. Despite the opulence of the kingdom, the use of technology that had once been common place like cell phones, television and tablets was nonexistent. It is as if I had been set back a few centuries. Outside contact was prohibited by the order because it was considered toxic to the collective consciousness we shared. The watchers met regularly alone in the forest, for private gatherings. It all caused me to wonder what they were truly up to. * * * My eyes remained…

I hesitated at the door but continued to push. The room was small and the wood benches beaten. Although, the room was warm and inviting, I felt cold and unwelcomed. My footsteps bounced off the stained glass windows and echoed throughout the organ pipes. The old priest met me in his neatly pressed long robes and pressed his rough hands against mine. It was little comfort, but I still felt it. I felt everything, but in an odd vacuum of reality. The very few dearly beloved mourned on the ground,…

"The Waking," a poem written by Theodore Roethke, is an immersive poem that allows readers the experience of Roethke's understanding of his own life, but also the very way of it. There is an extremely strong sense of emotion throughout this poem which also contributes to the continuous repetition of certain lines such as, "I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow." (line 1). This repetition of lines proves one of the main points of the poem in which creativity comes to everyone in their own way.…

men, and weaker than men. It was particularly seen as traditions in countries, such as, China and India, where men were able to have multiple wives, while having the actual paying jobs and leaving housework and sexual pleasure to the women. This is well portrayed in The Tale of Genji and The Waking of Angantyr from The Poetic Edda, the role of women was minimized aside the power of men by questioning women being independent and strong. However, just as the role of women were portrayed in the…

The struggle for waking up for school is real; the struggle and difficulty to change how early students go to school is a present problem. The United States has been quarreling around with the factors on making the education system the most effective it can be. With that being said, one of the issues being discussed is how advantageous schools would be with later start times. However, school starting at a later time can result in hurting the students in the long run, disputes between how…

“The Waking” in Literature: Approaches to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Throughout the poem, the narrator contemplates the grand significance of his existence and the value of a conscience. The narrator proposes the idea that there are two separate parts of human life — physical being and the conscience. The poem begins with the paradoxical line, “I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow” (Line 1). Another paradox in the poem is the narrator says, “We think by feeling” (Line 4). The use of…