Theodore Roethke’s My Papa’s Waltz and Robert Hayden’s Those Winter Sundays

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Abuse is a difficult and sensitive subject that can have long lasting effects. These traumatic emotional effects are often intensified if the abuse happens at a young age because children do not understand why the abuse is happening or how to deal with it. There are many abuse programs set up to counter the severe effects which abuse can have. Even more, poets and writers all over the world contribute works that express the saddening events and force the public to realize it is much more real than the informative articles we read about. One such poem is Theodore Roethke’s My Papa’s Waltz which looks carefully through the eyes of a young boy into the household of an abusive father. Robert Hayden’s Those Winter Sundays is a similar poem from the perspective of a young adult reflecting back on the childhood relationship with his father and the abuse his father inflicted. These poems are important because they deal with the complex issues surrounding the subject of abuse and also show the different ways which children react to it. My Papa’s Waltz and Those Winter Sundays are similar poems because they use tone, imagery, and sounds and rhythms to create tension between the negative aspects of abuse and the boys own love and understanding for their father.

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...

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...se of sound further proves that the young man loves his father.

My Papa’s Waltz and Those Winter Sundays are similar because they use tone, imagery, and sounds and rhythms to prove these two boys in fact love their abusive father. In both of these poems there is a movement from a cold and serious tone to a warm and happy one. The use of imagery successfully accentuates the good things the father does while marginalizing the bad. And the sounds and rhythms also add to the theme of love by manipulating how the poem is read. Roethke and Hayden are two skilled poets that have much control over the techniques they use. It is interesting that these poems are so alike and perhaps it is due to the time at which they were written. In any case, these two poets made a lasting impression on American poetry and will continue to appear in poetry anthologies for years to come.

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