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. Works Cited "Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).” Brain Psychics. 2009.
In the third and fourth lines, Roethke describes the boy trying to keep up with his father’s dance. He states, “But I hung on like death: / Such waltzing was not easy” (3-4). Roethke’s use of the simile “I hung on like death” implies that the waltz is extremely difficult and fast; however, he only states that it “was not easy.” The contrast between the diction in this two lines exemplifies the admiration the child has for his father. The child does not want to blame his father’s drunkenness for the difficulty of the waltz, so he downplays the difficulty instead. Roethke continues to use contrasting diction to emphasize the child’s love for his father.
I like when he realizes because he said “What did I know, what did I know” (13). All in all both of the poems are amazing realization of the past with their father’s relationships and reflecting on some positive or negative moments in their lives. While on poet thought he had a good dad when he was young he looks back and analyze that his father used to play with him when he was drunk and basically was the one holding him through his unbalance moment. When it should have been the other way around. Although in “Those winter Sundays” the boy didn’t care about his father hardship work and showed no type of appreciation, realizes that he was an exceptional father that had a lot to give.
As the little boy and his father continued to dance around the house and have a good time, the little boy’s mother was getting angry at the father. Roethke concludes,” My mother’s countenance / Could not unfrown itself” (Roethke 8-9). Roethke adds, “The hand that held my wrist/Was battered on one knuckle;” (Roethke 9-10). This shows his father is a hardworking man. The work that his father produces makes his knuckles bleed.
It is hard to decide if he is actually there, as there is nothing actually said between father and son, nor does the father respond to the boy. Rather, his son is possibly just imagining him. The line "I hung on like death" (Roethke 3), suggests that the whiskey is in fact causing the boy to become dizzy. The use of the word “death” so soon in the poem signals the reader that this poem is not merely a joyful memory. Suggesting the boy hung on “like” death is an example of a simile ("My Papa’s Waltz | Literature Folio", n.d., ).
My Papa’s Waltz, by Theodore Roethke, is a poem that has been interpreted in two very different ways. The first interpretation is that the poem is a child’s loving memory of his father who had too much to drink and the second interpretation is a child’s memory of his abusive father. After I read the poem, instead of looking at the two interpretations as completely unalike, I came to believe that both of the interpretations co-existed with each other and were valid. In order to understand why I believed so, it is important to break the poem apart and analyze the speaker, style, tone, and theme of the poem. The speaker of the poem seems to be a son recollecting his memories as a child and the relationship he had with his father.
He seemed to say young boy as if it wasn’t the son because the son is still denying the fact that they aren’t just playing. Then the son come back to reality and realizes that he is the one hanging on for dear life and they aren’t just playing a game. The last two lines of this poem are kind of like the final thoughts by the son that his dad still loves him. He says, “Then waltzed me off to bed still clinging to your shirt”. As you can see, the son still looks at this as a dance as if the father as just been playing with this whole time.
There are implications that there is something not a seemingly pleasant memory in the dissonant sounds. The poems rhyming scheme uses assonance, which the rhyming words are not identical such as “dizzy”, and “easy” (Roethke 2, 4). These words have slight imperfections that reflect the narrator’s emotions towards his father. Nevertheless, the boy has unconditional love for his father, that love cannot mask those imperfections. The boy’s father, portrayed as a drunkard, and perhaps that is the reason the poem leads us to believe that this is the reason for
You think you will but you won't (Know)” These parts also contain what he wanted to say his father. He always got A, so we can know he did well in that Hellton Academy, and did not complain to his father. If I have a son, I am sure to say that I want a son like him. His life is his own, but not his father’s. Even though he did well in the play and study, his father did not know his endeavor just like these lyrics.
As they dance, when the boy misses a step his ear scrapes his dad's belt buckle painfully, and finally the father whisks him off to bed. This is obviously a defining moment in his childhood. Most of us can think of a time when we roughhoused or danced with our fathers, standing on their feet so that we could keep... ... middle of paper ... ...o so because they love their children. By reflecting back on this experience as an adult, Hayden gives the reader the chance to mend his/her ways before it is too late-to appreciate our fathers for all that they do. Although Theodore Roethke and Robert Hayden have very different experiences in childhood to write about, the overall message is appreciation of their fathers.