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.
These lines demonstrate the stage of adulthood and the daily challenges that a person is faced with. The allusions in the poem enrich the meaning of the poem and force the reader to become more familiar with all of the meaning hidden behind the words. For example, she uses words such as innocence, imprisonment and captive to capture the feelings experienced in each of the stages. The form of the poem is open because there are no specific instances where the lines are similar. The words in each stanza are divided into each of the three growth stages or personal experiences.
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.
When reading a story or a poem, readers tend to analyze, and develop their own opinions. Any content an author or poet produces is up to the reader to question, and identify what the story is trying to say. The point that I am stating is that, stories are like maps that we readers need to figure out. We have to find the starting point, and get to the destination of our conclusion, and the thoughts we have about the story or poem. In the stories that we have read so for throughout the semester, they all have different messages of what they are trying to convey to the reader in a way that can be relatable. Among all the author’s and poet’s works we have read, I have enjoyed Theodore Roethke’s poems. Roethke has developed poems that explore emotions that readers can relate to. I would like to explain and interpret the themes that Theodore Roethke expresses in the poems “My Papa’s Waltz”, “The Waking”, and “I Knew a Woman”.
"My Papa 's Waltz," by Theodore Roethke 's, is a poem about a boy who expresses his affection for his father, but at the same time expresses a sense of danger that comes from the father. The poem appears to be a snapshot in time from a child’s memory. The uplifting experience is created through the father and son’s waltz while the father’s uncontrollable movements juxtaposes the menace of the drunken 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
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.
The flaw in “My Papa’s Waltz” is that the father is an alcoholic that angers his wife as he seems to be doing it often. In “Those Winter Sundays”, the little boy implies that anger surrounds the house and makes him feel uncomfortable, “and I would rise slowly and dress, fearing the chronic angers of that house,”(P. 677, lines 8-9). Both Robert Hayden and Theodore Roethke’s poems indicate that the poets loved their father nonetheless, even though they were not able to connect the dots during their infancy. It was not until later in life that the poets realized how many sacrifices their parents had to make in order to maintain the family in every
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
There are a couple of similes the author uses in the poem to stress the helplessness she felt in childhood. In the lines, “The tears/ running down like mud” (11,12), the reader may notice the words sliding down the page in lines 12-14 like mud and tears that flowed in childhood days. The speaker compares a...
Themes of the Relationships Explored in Father and Son, Warren Pryor, and My Papa’s Waltz The bonds we may share with the members of our families have the potential to be some of the most powerful and influential relationships of all. From parents to siblings and beyond, each individual plays a crucial role in both the development of character and the direction a person will travel over the course of their lives. In the three poems being analyzed, the central relationships revolve around the impact parents have on their children, and how their specific perceptions of life alter the mentality of their offspring. Respectively, each of these poems share a common theme of love, loss, and legacy in the way of allowing such a rewarding future provided for these children to be bestowed on the next generation.
These relationships can both be perceived as negative towards the two mothers in the different poems. However, the mothers do not react to the negativity, but watch on, one way or another. In My Papa’s Waltz the negative similarity towards the mother is displayed as she frowningly watches on as the young child clinches on to his drunken father’s leg (Roethke). The mother shows this gesture as she knows her husband’s fault, however, she also knows the son is too young to realize as he shows his love to his father. The mother could also possibly be torn apart and fearing of her husband’s alcoholism, but avoiding splitting the family for the child’s sake.
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 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.
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.