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Comparing My Papa's Waltz And Daddy

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In Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” and Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” both Poets have characters that are telling of their relationship or some kind of interaction the character had with their father. These poems are similar in some ways, but different in some ways. Regardless they both tell of a child and their relationship with their father. However the major difference between the two poems is Daddy is about Plath’s mother not her father; however this has no impact on the differences between the father child relationships in the poem. Both poets view their fathers differently in each of their poems. Roethke points out that the dad is a working man who drinks. He makes this evident when he says “the whiskey on your breathe” (1). Another way …show more content…

Another difference between the two poems is Roethke doesn’t have the child admit their feelings towards the father figure. Where in Plath’s poem the last line of the poem where she writes “Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through” (80). By writing those lines it is obvious that the child in the poem had a tough relationship with the father figure. Both poems are similar in that, they tell about the relationship between father and child. Although the relationship between father and child in “Daddy” seems more troubled than it does in “My Papa’s Waltz.” When readers look over “My Papa’s Waltz” they can see that the father and son have some slight relationship issues. Another thing that is similar between the two poems is both of the characters/narrators both express they want to hold on to their fathers. In Daddy this is expressed when Plath writes “At twenty I tried to die/ and get back, back, back to you” (58-60) Roethke expresses this when he writes “Then waltzed me off to bed, / still clinging to your shirt” (14-15). It is easy to see that both children in the poems want to hold onto their fathers no matter how difficult the relationship

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I believe Roethke decided to use the title “My Papa’s Waltz” instead of “My Father’s Waltz” because the poem is about a memory from his childhood. The simile “hung on like death” gives us a good idea of how hard the speaker tries to keep his balance while “waltzing” with his father (lines 3-4). The facial expression of the speaker’s mother “could not unfrown itself” (8). The speaker’s mother appears to be annoyed because he and his father are making a mess in the kitchen.

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One literary device Roethke uses is metaphor. Roethke continuously states that he is getting beaten by his drunken dad, but he also uses the word ‘waltz’ throughout the poem. In the first stanza, he says, “But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy.” He is saying that being beaten by his father is like dancing around in a waltz, which also gives it an ironic twist. Waltzing, in people’s mind, is a happy event, but Roethke uses the word despite the positive meaning put some positivity into the poem.

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The stories each involve a father and son conflict such as, ‘My son turned ten just the other day he said, “Thanks for the ball, Dad, come on let’s play can you teach me to throw”, I said “Not today I got a lot to do”, he said, “That’s ok”’ stated by Harry Chapin in “Cat’s in the Cradle”. This issue is displayed in both stories because neither father was involved much in their lives creating conflict. Person versus person is shown in each story. For example, in “A Boy Named Sue” Sue and his

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The imagery of “My Papas Waltz” can clearly be understood as a father waltzing with his son in the kitchen, tapping the beat too his son’s head, and his ear scraping his buckle against his child’s ear. The poem is playful when the poem says, “At every step you missed/ My right ear scraped a buckle” (Roethke lines 11-12).

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683 Words | 3 Pages

Every story consists of different elements, such as characters, plotlines, and settings. Nonetheless, many stories portray the same messages or ideas. “My Papa’s Waltz,” by Theodore Roethke, depicts a reckless father who is loved by his child, while “Those Winter Sundays,” by Robert Hayden, depicts a hardworking father whose child is indifferent to him. Though the poems depict exceptionally different childhoods, both contribute to the idea that perceptions of parents alter as one grows into adulthood. Both poems use harsh words and critical tones in order to convey this notion, however in “My Papa’s Waltz,” they signify the recklessness of the father and how the narrator perceives his father as an adult, while in “Those Winter Sundays,” they

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872 Words | 4 Pages

“My Papa's Waltz”, by Theodore Roethke, and “Those Winter Sundays”, by Robert Hayden are the two poems that are somewhat similar and both of these poems are about beloved fathers. Father is the man who is spends time with you and takes care of you. While doing so much for the family he gains the respect and love from the family. In these two poems Roethke and Hayden take a flashback at the actions of their fathers. Even though both of these poems propose that their fathers were not perfect, they still love them.

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846 Words | 4 Pages

Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” and Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” are similar because they focus on the same subject. However, they differ in how the speakers’ feel about their relationship with their parent(s). In Plath’s “Daddy”, the speaker is a daughter thinking about how her father treated her. She tells about how she felt trapped by him and how she tried to ‘kill’ him, line 6 of the poem, but he dies before she has a chance. The ending of Plath’s poem implies that she got married to a man like her father.

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For example, in stanza one lines one and three Roethke uses a rhyme scheme like the word “breath” rhymes with “death.” This line promotes the argument that his father abuses him because the word “ death” implies that a person is struggling in life. In stanza one lines two and four the author uses another rhyme scheme; the words “boy dizzy” rhymes with “not easy.” Further, the Roethke uses “boy dizzy” and “not easy” to imply that Roethke is struggling in life.

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515 Words | 3 Pages

There's a lot of anger in this family, either because the father is abusive or because the mother and father are having problems. It's telling us that there are two sides to this father and his family, and that even though he can appear caring by lighting a fire and warming the house, there's always tension in the house. In Flashcards, it states, "My father put up his feet after work and relaxed with a highball and The Life of Lincoln. After supper, we drilled

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Roethke 's poem, "My Papa 's Waltz," paints a picture of the speaker 's father in the

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1208 Words | 5 Pages

Hayden, now an adult realizes how much his father actually sacrificed for him and expected nothing in return, representing the theme of growing up and memory. In the poem “Papa’s Waltz”, Roethke tells us the story of his and his father’s relationship as a child, representing the theme of father/son relationships. In the poem Roethke explains this “waltz” that his father did, in reality, it is a tantrum, in a way, that his father did every time he drank, this represents the theme of violence in the poem. Throughout the poem “Those Winter Sundays”, the author talks about what it was like on those Sundays.

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243 Words | 1 Pages

These poems can also be very different. The first poem is from a child's perspective about

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All people have their good days and bad days. In the poems “Piano” by D.H. Lawrence and “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden, the speaker's experience both good memories and bad. Both speakers lived a simple life but what they as a individual were going through was not so simple. The poems each show love even if it's hard to tell. In the two poems “Piano” and “Those Winter Sundays” it shows that the conflict, setting and speaker reveal their own hardships and blessings.

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Children literature may not always be considered appropriate for children to read it because of the content it may contain. The poems I will be analyzing will be “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke and “Mother to Son” by Langston Hughes. These poems have nothing to do with each other they both have different meanings. “My Papa’s Waltz” concentrates in the life of this family were the father is drunk most of the time. “Mother to Son” concentrates in the concept dreamed by many called the “American Dream”.

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This displays the fear that the author had for his father. When reflecting over the poem, John J. Mckenna stated, “The author replaced the rather benign ‘kept’ with ‘beat’ thus making the situation more ominous, more negative” Roethke’s father worked manual labor and had a strong physique. This means that he might’ve been too rough with his son at times, but not intentionally to hurt him. That is one of the reasons Roethke feared his father slightly. Another change Roethke made to the poem was the gender of the child.

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