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Literary analysis essay on poetry
My papa's waltz” analysis
My papa's waltz personal analysis
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More handpicked essays just for you.
Literary analysis essay on poetry
My papa's waltz” analysis
My papa's waltz personal analysis
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
In the beginning of the poem Roethke describes what a child thinks about their father’s life. “The whiskey on your breath / could make a small boy dizzy; / But I hung on like death:/ Such waltzing was not easy”. The first stanza shows the way the child describes this father’s life. The first two lines talk about, “whiskey” and, “make a small boy dizzy” this shows that people like the child 's father cannot take such a difficult life like the child 's father does.
The poem, My Papa’s Waltz, is one of Theodore Roethke’s most renowned poems. A father and son are dancing in the kitchen really close to the boy’s bed time and the mother is displeased by the racket and noise. The father is drunk and his cheery attitude is amplified by the whisky he had earlier on. Tone and Style Roethke's style of poetry is an interesting mix of introspection, intense lyricism, and naturalism. Some of his poems revolved around his own subconscious emotions and thoughts.
In the Poem “My Papa’s Waltz;” written by Theodore Roethke, the poem presents a somber tone through its usage of negative words and persuasive poetic craft. Throughout the poem “My Papa’s Waltz,” Theodore Roethke uses forceful words such as death, romped, unfrown, battered, and beat to provide the reader with tenderness for the character. This choice of words is used by the author likely to create the image of someone being abused and harmed. Consequently, many will argue that the story is about a son dancing with his drunken father. Some examples of this include when Roethke writes “The Whiskey on your breath.
The use of this metaphor emphasizes the depth of the father's love, despite his struggles and sacrifices. Another literary device that both poems use is tone. Roethke's poem has a playful and nostalgic tone, with the use of words like "romped" (Roethke, line 5) and "clinging" (Roethke, line 16) suggesting a fond memory of his father. However, the tone also has a hint of darkness and danger, with the description of the "battered" (Roethke, line 10) knuckles and the "ear-scrap(ing)" (Roethke, line 12) dance.
Roethke uses a confused tone to show the reader how the little boy is confusing his father’s dark actions with a misleading waltz. After the beating/abuse the father gave, his son it is now time for bed. The dad takes him to his bedroom, but since the dad is still
As we grow older, small moments we shared with our parents seem to take on a new light. Memories we once viewed with fondness or with uncertainty can evolve and change our perceptions and lend a new tone to these memories. This is shown in Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” which tells of an encounter between father and son. The poem opens with the father arriving home after a night of drinking whiskey.
I liked this poem because it was a little easier to analyze and interpret. Through the use of negative connotation within the poem “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke creates a more complex tone in which feelings of discomfort, tension and affection are both present. The author uses imagery and figurative language to paint a picture of a father and his son dancing around the kitchen. Roethke uses words like “dizzy,” “battered,” and “scraped” to describe the physical state that the speaker is in when they interact with their father, and that might be suggestive of violence between a father and his child, which might make one uncomfortable, or uneasy. T It also talks about being able to smell the whiskey on his breath.
The simile “But I hung on like death” (3) in Theodore Roethke’s poem allows the writer to clearly set the darker tone of “My Papa’s Waltz”. In this poem, the poet describes his father’s odd behavior. He also defines that alcohol was a factor and, consequently, his mother’s disapproved of the father’s actions.
In the opening stanza of this poem, the speaker states, “The whiskey on your breath/Could make a small boy dizzy;/But I hung on like death:/Such waltzing was not easy” (1-4). Although the father’s apparent drunkenness may seem to make the dance a negative experience, the phrase “But I hung on like death” makes it seem like the boy doesn’t care and wants to spend time with his father regardless. The vivid imagery used here, which states that the strong smell of whiskey on the father’s breath can make a boy dizzy, points to the likelihood of the father being drunk. His drunken state leads to a sloppy and complicated dance, which likely relates to how their relationship is the majority of the time. The descriptions make it seem like the father is a frequent drinker, which may in turn create a tense relationship between the father and the speaker.
The father has been drinking, but nowhere in the poem it is stated that he is an alcoholic like others presume. They are dancing and it seems that the young boy remembers his life with his father as joyful and playful. His father and him seem to have a very close relationship. The boy explains, “With every step you missed/ My right ear scraped a buckle,” the father waltzes with his son rough, but he doesn’t mean to hurt his son intentionally.
My Papa’s Waltz is a poem written by Theodore Roethke. The poem is a memory of a short moment of his childhood. The setting of the poem is in a kitchen. The poem starts when the dad comes home and his son hangs himself on to his dad. This poem has a simple abab rhyme scheme.
In the poem, the father is normally busy doing labor even on Sundays, which is normally a day of rest and sleeping in later. In Roethke’s poem, My Papa’s Waltz he believes it is great to take time
Also, Roethke writes “my mother’s countenance could not unfrown itself.” When deconstructing this phrase, the mother is seen as unhappy because the author and his father play “until the pans [slide] from the kitchen shelf” meaning she is upset because she might have just finished cleaning and was annoyed of the mess caused by them. In short, Roethke creates a playful and joyous memory from his
A Darker Side of Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” At first read, a happy and joyful experience between a father and son may be what one takes away from “My Papa’s Waltz,” but a darker meaning of Theodore Roethke’s poem may rise to the surface after deeper study. Buried in-between the lines of Theodore Roethke’s poem “My Papa’s Waltz,” many different interpretations can be taken from this interaction between the father and son, and the “waltz” these two share. The negative interpretation, arguably, would be that of more than just a “waltz,” but a trace of something else going on, such as torment and abuse, in the midst of the child’s thought of play. Taking a look inside this father/son relationship, it can be inferred that Roethke writes this poem to use the
The purpose of the text is to entertain readers and to show readers a part of Roethke's childhood. The poem discusses Roethke’s relationship with his father. His father is described as a drunk, with hints of violence. This can be concluded from the lines ‘The hand that held my wrist Was battered on one knuckle’.