The Geranium Theodore Roethke Analysis

Theodore Roethke Didn’t Know He’d be a Poet

Born in Saginaw Michigan in 1908, Theodore Roethke grew up in his parent’s home, which was built in 1911 for his parents Helen and Otto Roethke. (Theodore Roethke) This was a family estate with Theodore’s Uncle, Carl living on property as well. (Theodore Roethke) The family was in the flower business and Theodore spent many a day in the greenhouse. This is the source of many of his poems, along with his childhood experiences. Roethke is credited with saying the greenhouse, “is my symbol for the whole of life, a womb, a heaven-on-earth” (Theodore Roethke) Theodore Roethke went to school at John Moore Elementary School, and attended Arthur Hill High School, both in Saginaw Michigan. (Theodore

This poem is has alliteration in it. Alliteration is found in the following passages of the poem; “Sustenance seemed sensible”, “dumb dames”, and “breathing booze”. (The Geranium Selected) This poem is about a man who is dying maybe. While this man is dying, dying along with him is his plant geranium. These two lives are running parallel with each other, parallel straight down. Age is a theme in this poem, as could the idea of starting anew, from these lines in the poem “Threw her, pot and all, into the trash-can” and “For a new routine”. (The Geranium

The poem is obviously about a student that dies by horseback, and the teacher is the speaker of the poem. A theme in the poem is birds. Not just birds, but gray, plain birds, if there ever was such a thing. Obviously Jane was not the most attractive girl in the class, if a teacher would have such thoughts, but the qualities of Jane the teacher speaks of, would assume that he was quite fond of her and her ways, as only a teacher, or parent could probably be. It appears that Roethke was treading the fine line between student and teacher. It also appears that Roethke was testing the boundaries of what is an acceptable relationship between a student and a teacher. It seems that the teacher had romantic thoughts about Jane, but never acted on them. This appears so by lines nineteen and twenty of the poem. They read as follows; “Over this damp grave I speak the words of my love” and “I, with no rights in this matter” (Elegy for Jane). It appears that this love was innocent but out of place, due to the student teacher relationship and also Jane's age, more likely than not. Line twenty shows that the teacher had made his peace, not only with the death of Jane, but also the fact that dead or alive he could never actually, physically lover