The Human Emotions and Experiences expressed in “The Whipping” and “My Papa’s Waltz” “The Whipping” and “My Papa’s Waltz” both deal with critical and serious issues that lie within the human mind. The issues being compared can be viewed as abusive, emotional or confusion. The reader can possibly be drawn by the poet to experience their own memories, emotions, and experiences in similar situations. These childhood memories can easily be revisited as adults and their life experiences can be viewed differently as they enter into adulthood. Both pleasant and unpleasant memories stay with a person throughout his or her lifetime. In each of these poems the poet expresses similar situations in his own journey through his eyes as a child. One of the areas being discussed is potential abuse and inappropriate behavior in the two poems. “The Whipping” demonstrates a neighbor witnessing an abusive relationship between a mother and her young child as she is drawn back to her own fearful past. As the neighbor looks upon the child she recalls the memories and facial expressions of her own mother as she states “Words could bring, the face that I no longer knew or loved …” (lines17-19). “My Papa’s Waltz”, on the other hand, demonstrates the possible inappropriate behavior of a father towards his son. The father shows a lack of concern for his child when it states The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle. (lines 9-12) His actions toward his child are not portrayed in a proper manner. However, some audiences could view this as a playful and loving relationship. The second area being discussed is the ... ... middle of paper ... ...xperiences of their readers. The poems express critical and serious issues that surround the heartfelt childhood memories of the readers. The surrounding circumstances and situations are different in each household. The readers are personally drawn to feel expressions of abuse, emotional issues and confusion as the poets draw them into a journey through their own personal life experiences from childhood to adulthood. These experiences are carried throughout a person’s life. Readers are somewhat forced to immediately draw themselves closer to the characters and can relate to them on a personal level. Citation Page "My Papas Waltz." 123HelpMe.com. 24 Jan 2010 . "The Whipping." Suite 101.com. 24 Jan 2010 .
The speaker’s rocky encounter with her ex-lover is captured through personification, diction, and tone. Overall, the poem recaps the inner conflicts that the speak endures while speaking to her ex-lover. She ponders through stages of the past and present. Memories of how they were together and the present and how she feels about him. Never once did she broadcast her emotions towards him, demonstrating the strong facade on the outside, but the crumbling structure on the inside.
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.
Through diction, the tone of the poem is developed as one that is downtrodden and regretful, while at the same time informative for those who hear her story. Phrases such as, “you are going to do bad things to children…,” “you are going to suffer… ,” and “her pitiful beautiful untouched body…” depict the tone of the speaker as desperate for wanting to stop her parents. Olds wrote many poems that contained a speaker who is contemplating the past of both her life and her parent’s life. In the poem “The Victims,” the speaker is again trying to find acceptance in the divorce and avoidance of her father, “When Mother divorced you, we were glad/ … She kicked you out, suddenly, and her/ kids loved it… ” (Olds 990). Through the remorseful and gloomy tone, we see that the speaker in both poems struggles with a relationship between her parents, and is also struggling to understand the pain of her
Inevitability at one point in most of our lives we have to deal with some type of hardship. A lot of us have experienced first hand or known someone who has had the unfortunate experience of dealing with a close friend or family member who becomes abusive and aggressive because of drug or alcohol related problems. My Papa’s waltz is a poem that tells the story of a young boy dealing with an abusive father and a broken home. Despite the initial light atmosphere of the poem Theodore Roethke uses strong and powerful language to convey an underlined meaning to their dance. My Papa's Waltz is a poem of fear, all the more horrible because the boy is terrified and hurt by his father, even in play, yet he clings and hangs to him showing how strong he is despite his age and through his actions he illustrates his love and patience for his troubled father.
Donald Hall describes the use of imagery in poetry as a device that "makes us more sensitive to [literature], as if we acquired eyes that could see through things"(p 530). Imagery creates vivid details that deal with one's sense of sight, sound, touch, smell, or taste. These details can be seen in Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz" because the senses of touch, sight, sound, and smell appeal to the reader in order to better explain the feelings of each character in the poem. Roethke's use of imagery creates a negative picture that is painted by the son of an abusive father.
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
... 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.
Childhood experiences seem to be the ones that are recollected most vividly throughout a person's life. Almost everyone can remember some aspect of his or her childhood experiences, pleasant and unpleasant alike. Theodore Roethke's poem "My Papa's Waltz" suggests even further that this concept could be true. The dance described in this poem illustrates an interaction between father and child that contains more than the expected joyous, loving attitude between the two characters. Roethke's tone in this work exhibits the blended, yet powerful emotions that he, as a grown man, feels when looking back on this childhood experience. The author somewhat implicates feelings of resentment fused with a loving reliance with his father.
Question: Discuss the narrator’s feelings towards his father and his own situation. How does the poet convey these feelings?
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...
In the poem’s opening lines, she begins her day occupying the harried mother role, and with “too much to do,” (2) expresses her struggle to balance priorities. After saying goodbye to her children, and rushing out the door, she transitions from one role to the next, as well as, one emotion to another. As the day proceeds, when reflecting on her life choices, she wonders “what she might have been as a mother” (23), fantasizing about being around, experiencing more of her children's development and daily life. By deciding to pursue her current situation, she must entrust her children’s wellbeing to another, rather than herself, and as she “feels the quick stab […]” (36) she experiences flashes of guilt. However, knowing she has happy and well cared for children, in spite of it all, creates recognition of the situation’s
The change in perspective of the narrative, from past to present, portrays the father in two different lights. The poem is told from the point of view of the daughter of a couple who experience marriage problems. The beginning of “The Victims” illustrates the memories that the woman is recalling nostalgically of her childhood. From lines 1 to 17 the narrator evokes her father, with the repetition of “you”, (1, 3) who had acted terribly during the narrator’s youth and who was abruptly kicked out and divorced by the mother. The narrator describes her father who, to his daughter, lived a luxurious and insensitive...
The speaker reflects on the teenage girl’s childhood as she recalls the girl played with “dolls that did pee-pee” (2). This childish description allows the speaker to explain the innocence of the little girl. As a result, the reader immediately feels connected to this cute and innocent young girl. However, the speaker’s diction evolves as the girl grew into a teenager as she proclaims: “She was healthy, tested intelligent, / possessed strong arms and back, / abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity” (7-9). The speaker applies polished language to illustrate the teen. This causes the reader not only to see the girl as an adult, but also to begin to grasp the importance of her situation. The speaker expresses what the bullies told this girl as she explains: “She was advised to play coy, / exhorted to come on hearty” (12-13). The sophisticated diction shifts towards the girl’s oppressors and their cruel demands of her. Because of this, the reader is aware of the extent of the girl’s abuse. The speaker utilizes an intriguing simile as she announces: “Her good nature wore out / like a fan belt” (15-16). The maturity of the speaker’s word choice becomes evident as she uses a simile a young reader would not understand. This keeps the mature reader focused and allows him to fully understand the somberness of this poem. The speaker concludes the poem as she depicts the teenage girl’s appearance at her funeral: “In the casket displayed on satin she lay / with the undertaker’s cosmetics painted on” (19-20). The speaker elects not to describe the dead girl in an unclear and ingenuous manner. Rather, she is very clear and
The three poems acknowledge the fathers; however, the poems are different in their mood. The mood of Theodore Roethke’s poem, “My Papa’s Waltz,” is exciting. The poem is a childhood memory of Roethke’s father whirling him around the kitchen. The poet describes how the poet feels, as his father whirls him around. Roethke wrote, “breath and death,” “dizzy and easy.” (“Papa” 1-4) The reader imagines the father whirling the boy around, and the boy holding on tight to his father. The poet wrote, “We romped until the pans/slid from the kitchen shelf.” (“Papa” 5-6) and “My mother’s countenance/Could not unfrown itself.” (“Papa” 7-8) The mother appears to dislike the whirling around in the kitchen, but the poet uses the word “romp,” which indicates it was playful and fun. The rhyme gives the reader the choice of interpreting the poem with a favorable or unfavorable meaning. I believe the poet’s childhood memory demonstrates the father’s attention and love for his son.
A poem’s diction plays a fundamental role in analyzing a poem, considering the text is all one needs in order to discover the meaning. My Papa’s Waltz is a fairly short poem, but the words have major impact. The word “whiskey” (Line 1) implies that the father is a drunk, and this makes the boy “dizzy,” (Line 2) or in other words, it sickens him. The poem claims the boy is small, making him sound fragile, playing into the next few lines of the poem. “Death” (Line 3) is a negative connotation, along with “battered” (Line 10), “beat” (Line 13), and “caked hard” (Line 14). “Romped” (Line 5) has a positive denotation suggesting harmless roughhousing. The word “countenance” (Line 7) does not flow within the stanza, sounding sharp and negative, paralleling the mother’s stern disapproval. “Hung” (Line 3) is past tense, therefore the poem is a reflection of an earlier time. “Waltzed” (Line 15) takes on a different meaning beyond the dance, making it a synonym for taking someone somewhere. Understanding the words of a poem was the first step in order to analyze My Papa’s Waltz using this methodology.