Comparing 'My Papa's Waltz And Schizophrenia'

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Through different elements of poetic literature the poets and their poems succeed to communicate their themes of love and family relationships. Poems were meant to express feelings of anger, love, money, or work management. Although some are written in different forms whether it is a sonnet or a haiku. Either way the poets used different techniques and word forms to get their selected theme across to the readers. The first theme that can be deciphered from poets is: family relationships. Two poems that exhibit this theme are: My Papa’s Waltz by Theodore Roethke and Schizophrenia by Jim Stevens. Both poems are similar yet different depending on the reader’s perspective. The second theme that can be deciphered from poets is: love. Two poems …show more content…

They both also have a specific structure to how they were written. After analyzing both poems, it is clear that Schizophrenia exhibits the form of a free verse meanwhile My Papa’s Waltz is a fixed form. Steven’s poem is a free verse because the speaker of the poem could be the poet or someone who experienced it. This is indicated by how he speaks.The shift occurs between the last two stanza's. It is obvious because this is when Stevens’ refers back to the beginning. Roethke’s poem is a fixed form because it follows a simple ABAB rhyme scheme.where every other line rhythms. It also follows the same number of lines within the stanzas. The poems exert the feelings and emotions through each word and line. The poets use this technique to emphasize the theme of the poem. Both poems prove the theme to be about family relationships. In Schizophrenia, the poem starts off saying “It was the house that suffered the most”(line 1). This already gives the reader insight that the house went through and felt what the family on the inside was going through. This element of personification makes it seem like the house was a person and it was suffering from the pain and abuse the family put it

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