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The cycle of father-son relationships in fences
The cycle of father-son relationships in fences
Concept of love in oedipus
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Through the duration of this course there have been many themes influenced through the works of literature that have been read and analyzed. One major theme that has been discussed is that of love. Whether the love being romantic, fantasized, or familial as a class we have seen it all. The focus of this essay will be on the familial type of love. Familial love, an overwhelming theme in some of these stories, strikes a serious type of thought in the mind of any reader. The three main stories that will be focused on are “Fences,” Oedipus the King, and “My Papa”s Waltz.” These three stories are unique and each explains a completely different type of familial love. Familial love that will make the heart warm, the head strong, and the stomach churn. …show more content…
Which, after all, is experienced by every teenage kid in an argument with his or her parents. This love is one of the most common that is invoked by a family. Whether it is between a mother and father, brother and sister, or father and son everyone has experienced it in some way. It 's the type of love that can 't be avoided. Its when a dad says to go “hand pick” the leaves instead of using the rake. Consequently, the child will immediately question his judgment and ask to use the rake. This leads to an argument where both parties of the argument become headstrong and bound to their ideas. This type of familial love is quite evident in the story of “Fences.” This story goes back to one of the hardest times for African American families. A time and place where they were just getting rights as normal Americans. Although many conflicts in the family are due to their race, the main one is between father and son. Corey, the son of Troy, is an outstanding football player who has aspirations of becoming a professional football player. These dreams almost become reality when he is offered a scholarship for college to play football. Though Corey is ecstatic to find this out, his father is not. When Troy was a young man he was going to play professional baseball. When he made it there he was not accepted on a team due to his race. In fear that his son would endure the same fate, Troy …show more content…
True love in a family is the kind that can never be replaced. The kind of love that makes a father and daughter bond so strong is also the kind of love that puts a smile on a child’s face after coming home from a long day of work. The one that keeps a family floating through anything. True love becomes evident when reading the poem My Papa’s Waltz which describes a father coming home from work and see’s his wife and child. Taking place right after dinner the father immediately begins making lots of noise knocking pans around dancing in the kitchen. As the father realizes the boy’s excitement he grabs him to join in on the dance and the two begin to wrestle around in the kitchen making a mess. The mother is not the happiest because the two “romped until the pans slid from the shelf,”(Roethke lines 5-6) but she enjoys seeing the two have so much fun. In the poem, the boy describes every aspect of his father while the two play around. Although the mom in this story is upset she will have to clean, it is apparent the son and father are having a blast. This story ends when the dad “then waltzed me off to bed, still clinging to your shirt.”(lines 15-16) The son has his night ended with his dad dancing him to his bed. A true love could be no more evident than this in a family. Many people can think of memories of parents doing complete acts of love like this just to make a child
The first poem, "My Papa's Waltz," by Theodore Roethke (Page 18) presents a clear picture of the young man's father, from line one. "Whiskey" on the father's breath is one of many clues in appearance that mold a rough image of this uneducated, blue-collar worker, possibly a European immigrant, as indicated by the "Waltz" in the title (Line 1). These traits are not necessarily related. They merely exist at once in the father's character. Additional signs of roughness are his hand, "battered on one knuckle"(11), and "a palm caked hard by dirt"(14). This is a man who has probably known only grueling labor. His few escapes likely consist of a drink or two when he gets home from a tough day and maybe something good on the radio. This idea of the father as an unrefined oaf is further reinforced by his actions. His missed steps injure the child's ear, while the father and son's "romping" causes the pans to slide "from the kitchen shelf"(6). As he "beat[s] time"(13) on the child's head we see very clearly that he is quite brutish and careless with the child, and oblivious to his environment. All these factors make the boy's mother very uncomfortable. We can see the disapproval in her countenance, which "could not unfrown itself"(8). She is obviously upset but, strangely, does nothing to interfere with the horseplay that grieves her. This suggests that the waltz is enjoyable for not only one, but both parties. One might wonder why it is that the boy so delights in these moments. This is obviously a crude, boorish man. He probably doesn't flush. He may even smell bad. Are these reasons to love one's father less? Certainly not in the eyes of a small boy. This young man's father may not be the most sensitive or perceptive man around, but he still seems to be a hero in the eyes of his son. Finally, the son recalls these words: "Then you waltzed me off to bed/ Still clinging to your shirt"(16). After reading this poem, it is clear just how unconditional a child's love is.
In 1908, the year this poem was written, child abuse was recognized internationally and the “Children Act of 1908” was put in place to attempt to minimize the occurrences. The narrator, a young boy in “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke uses harsh and intense wording that describes the daily rituals of abuse within the household from the father that he characterizes as a dance. A large counter argument against this poem says that the narrator is speaking out of admiration rather than fear; that the narrator and his drunken father are merrily playing around by dancing together around their house.
Gaitskill’s “Tiny, Smiling Daddy” focuses on the father and his downward spiral of feeling further disconnected with his family, especially his lesbian daughter, whose article on father-daughter relationships stands as the catalyst for the father’s realization that he’d wronged his daughter and destroyed their relationship. Carver’s “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love” focuses on Mel and his attempt to define, compare, and contrast romantic love, while leaving him drunk and confused as he was before. While both of my stories explore how afflicted love traumatizes the psyche and seem to agree that love poses the greatest dilemma in life, and at the same time that it’s the most valued prospect of life, the two stories differ in that frustrated familial love causes Gaitskill's protagonist to become understandable and consequently evokes sympathy from the reader, but on the other hand frustrated romantic love does nothing for Carver's Protagonist, except keep him disconnected from his wife and leaving him unchanged, remaining static as a character and overall unlikable. In comparing “Tiny, Smiling Daddy” and “What We Talk About When We Talk About Love”, together they suggest that familial love is more important than romantic love, which we relentlessly strive to achieve often forgetting that we’ll forever feel alone without familial love, arguably the origin of love itself.
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.
In My Papa’s Waltz a young boy is telling us about an instance in which his father was very drunk, they are playfully waltzing around, they are knocking down pans all over the kitchen, and the mother seems to be upset, the dad is hurting the speaker with the dance, however the dad doesn’t appear to notice this. Eventfully, the dad puts his son to bed, however it appears that the son doesn’t want to let go of his father at that moment. Although the speaker appears to be recalling a memory with fondness that is not the case. The poem is a symbol of the difficult relationship between the speaker and his father. We know that Roethke’s
My Papa's Waltz, by Theodore Roethke, is a poem about an abusive father from the perspective of his child. The poem has a bit of violence and mature themes that give it a dark tone. However, this dark tone is hidden by a lighter tone given by simple rhymes and diction. The theme of the waltz also gives this poem its lighter tone, as the dance is elegant, simple, and innocent. Overall, this poem uses its structure to create a poem which seems simple upon a first listening, but demonstrates deeper meanings and themes when further analyzed.
In the poem "My Papa's Waltz" written by Theodore Roethke, can be interpreted in two different ways. Some people think that this poem is one of a happy exchange between a father and son. Other people believe that this poem has a hidden message of parental abuse. The poets use of poetic devices gave the impression of the love between the father and son, not of an abusive relationship.
While most of us think back to memories of our childhood and our relationships with our parents, we all have what he would call defining moments in our views of motherhood or fatherhood. It is clearly evident that both Theodore Roethke and Robert Hayden have much to say about the roles of fathers in their two poems as well. While the relationships with their fathers differ somewhat, both men are thinking back to a defining moment in their childhood and remembering it with a poem. "My Papa's Waltz" and "Those Winter Sundays" both give the reader a snapshot view of one defining moment in their childhood, and these moments speak about the way these children view their fathers. Told now years later, they understand even more about these moments.
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...
To be honest, it still is. Yet, my desire to bond with him mattered more to me. Roethke’s narrator in “My Papa’s Waltz” says, “I hung on like death” (l. 3) while waltzing with the child’s father. Whereas, I ask that my father doesn’t invite my siblings because “Just you and me is better” (l. 6) Both children desperately wanted quality time with their fathers because they knew at the end of the night their father would leave them whether it was because the father “waltzed [the child] off to bed” (l. 15) or because he is leaving for a trip (l. 10). “Daddy’s Girl” portrays my youth and natural tendency to desire my father’s
this strong desire and I can say that all of us in here have the same
Nonetheless, this really is a tale of compelling love between the boy and his father. The actions of the boy throughout the story indicate that he really does love his father and seems very torn between his mother expectations and his father’s light heartedness. Many adults and children know this family circumstance so well that one can easily see the characters’ identities without the author even giving the boy and his father a name. Even without other surrounding verification of their lives, the plot, characters, and narrative have meshed together quite well.
The human relationship can be interpreted as interpersonal or intimate; stemming from these two classifications are many of the reasons for characteristic development within human nature. By studying literary works we can glimpse into human behavior and learn what actually causes a person’s actions and downfalls. Many of these works have shown the effects a dominant and inferior relationship may cause, ranging from self-independence to parental influence. We’ve seen the defiance of rulers, the mimicking actions of father and son, the comparison of siblings, and the rebellion of a son.
There are four types of love in this world, philia, eros, agape, and storge. Philia is the love of friends. Eros is romantic love. Agape is unconditional love. And storge is the love of family. In the four stories “A Secret for Two”, “The Gift of the Magi”, “Thank You M’am”, and “Too Soon a Woman” they all portray a type of love. This essay will show you how each of the stories portray a type of love.
...have the most robust connections alive. They also have the intimacy, influence, design, impact and carving tools to carve us. The family itself can control and change our views on society, influence how we view the family unit, and yet most of all impact our everyday choices. There is nothing the family couldn’t possibly do. Anne Frank, Kino, Mourad, The Scieszka brothers, and the brother in family are divine exemplar for us to see the way a family can sway. Since the drive of the family is the second influential component of life, love is the first. Yet we fail to see that the family is the love, it doesn’t matter if they’re poor, if they’re trapped, or even throwing up on each other, this is the strongest love in the world. People move on, but they always remember the family. The family is wolf pack, everyone des there own thing, but they always remain together.