In comparing and contrasting the poems, "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke and "Piano" by D. H. Lawrence, the reader could also compare and contrast the childhood lives of the poets themselves. Roethke's father, Otto Roethke, was a drunk and a figure of terror to his son (Seager 26). His mother was an angry woman and Theodore was a desperate child consistently in the middle of his parent's opposition (Seager 28). D.H. Lawrence's father was a drunk, almost illiterate miner (Squires and Talbot 34). His mother; however, was educated, refined, and pious, ruling the lives of her sons (Squires and Talbot 42). Reviewing the form, tone, and imagery of both poems, the attitude of the boy towards his father in Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz" allows the reader to observe the poet's ironic tone contrasting with the attitude of the boy towards his childhood in Lawrence's "Piano", allowing us to sense a more melancholy tone.
The poems are similar in form. Roethke uses closed form in "My Papa's Waltz" (Seager 165). The work has a distinct structure and rhyme scheme. There are four stanzas within the poem and each stanza consists of four lines (435). The lines of the poem are either six or seven syllables and create a concise meter for the work. The quatrains of "My Papa's Waltz" are an alternating rhyme pattern of a b a b. For example:
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself. (5-8)
Lawrence also uses closed form in "Piano" (Squires and Talbot 329) with a distinct structure and rhyme scheme. There are three stanzas within this poem and each stanza consists of four lines (520) creating a concise meter for the work. The quatrains of "Piano" have line rhymes as couplets:...
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...nts a man looking back on his childhood with love and longing admiration. Both poet's have used their childhood experiences to create a window into their past, reviewing a piece of their lives, to move forward with their bold futures.
Works Cited
Roethke, Theodore. "My Papa's Waltz." Literature and the Writing Process. Elizabeth McMahan, Susan X Day, and Robert Funk. 6th edition. Upper Saddle River. New Jersey: Prentice 2002. 435.
Lawrence, David Herbert. "Piano." Literature and the Writing Process. Elizabeth McMahan, Susan X Day, and Robert Funk. 6th edition. Upper Saddle River. New Jersey: Prentice 2002. 520.
Seager, Allan. The Glass House: The Life of Theodore Roethke. New York: McGraw-Hill 1968.
Squire, Michael, and Talbot, Lynn. Living At The Edge: A Biography of D.H. Lawrence and Frieda Von Richthofen. University of Wisconsin Pr: June 2002.
Roethke’s and Hayden’s poems use tone in the same way to show that both children ultimately love their fathers regardless of the abuse he commits. The young boy in My Papa’s Waltz is clearly very fond of his father even though his Papa abuses him. It is through the tone the young boy uses that Roethke shows how much he loves his father. This is first enforced when the boy says, “But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy” (Roethke, 3-4). The boy loves his father and he h...
Updike, John. "A&P." Thinking and Writing About Literature. Ed. Michael Meyer. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2001. 981-86. Print.
... overall themes, and the use of flashbacks. Both of the boys in these two poems reminisce on a past experience that they remember with their fathers. With both poems possessing strong sentimental tones, readers are shown how much of an impact a father can have on a child’s life. Clearly the two main characters experience very different past relationships with their fathers, but in the end they both come to realize the importance of having a father figure in their lives and how their experiences have impacted their futures.
Roethke's Revisions and the Tone of 'My Papa's Waltz'". ANQ Spring 1998: v11n2. Online. The. Galileo. 21 October 1999. Roethke, Theodore.
Chopin, Kate. "The Story of an Hour." Literature: Approaches to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Boston:
This poem has a kept form. Even at a glance, it has a set form. It consists of four quatrains, each line being an iambic tritameter. The poem is about a young boy waltzing with his father. One can assume that the speaker is a young boy, or perhaps the poet reminiscing his youth. The father dances around in a haphazard manner, knocking over pans in the kitchen. Upon first glance, the tone is humorous. The picture one immediately forms is rather comical with the boy clinging on for dear life as his chuckling father spins him round and round, making a mess in the kitchen while the mother looks on discontentedly. However, the line, "whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy" suggests the father's drunkedness and "at every step you missed my right ear scraped buckle" suggests the dance was not an altogether joyful one. Lines such as "hung on like death", and "beat time on my head" are might even lead the reader to think the father is abusive of the boy.
The poem is written in the father’s point of view; this gives insight of the father’s character and
Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour.” Approaching Literature: Reading + Writing + Thinking, Third Edition. Ed. Schakel, Peter J, and Jack Ridl. Boston, MA: Bedford/St. Martins, 2012. 233-234. Print.
Family bonds are very important which can determine the ability for a family to get along. They can be between a mother and son, a father and son, or even a whole entire family itself. To some people anything can happen between them and their family relationship and they will get over it, but to others they may hold resentment. Throughout the poems Those Winter Sundays, My Papa’s Waltz, and The Ballad of Birmingham family bonds are tested greatly. In Those Winter Sundays the relationship being shown is between the father and son, with the way the son treats his father. My Papa’s Waltz shows the relationship between a father and son as well, but the son is being beaten by his father. In The Ballad of Birmingham the relationship shown is between
Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour.” An Introduction to Literature. Eds. Sylvan Barnet, William Burto, and William E. Cain. 15th ed. New York: Longman, 2008. 193-199
The author uses imagery, contrasting diction, tones, and symbols in the poem to show two very different sides of the parent-child relationship. The poem’s theme is that even though parents and teenagers may have their disagreements, there is still an underlying love that binds the family together and helps them bridge their gap that is between them.
...s, Edgar V. Writing about Literature. 11th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2006. Print.
Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz" is about a relationship between a father and his son. Beginning with the title, the author's meticulous choice of voca...
Glaspell, Susan. Trifles. Literature and the Writing Process. Elizabeth Mahan, Susan X Day, and Robert Funk. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice, 2002. 977-986
Chopin, Kate. “The Story of an Hour.” Heritage of American Literature. Ed. James E. Miller. Vol 2. Austin: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1991.487.Print.