Analysis of Three Works of Poetry: My Papa's Walts, Our Father, and The Early Purges

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Analysis of Three Works of Poetry: My Papa's Walts, Our Father, and The Early Purges

Obviously our childhood is the most important period of our lives, it

determines how we develop and can have a great influence on we will be

like when we grow up. Much of our formation depends on our parents and

how strict they are etc.

I have had a reasonably good childhood. I have had two parents who

have jobs, which means two sets of wages are coming into the house

every week. That has enabled us to have a comfortable lifestyle.

The three poems I will be looking at in this essay are ''My Papa's

Waltz'' ''Our Father'' and ''The Early Purges''. In this essay I will

be looking at childhood and how childhood experiences are recalled by

the different poets and reflected in the way they write their poems.

These poems are disturbing in the way that they all include cruelty.

The first poem that I will look into is ''My Papa's Waltz''. In this

poem a boy seems to be getting hurt by his father we know this because

it says

''You beat time on my head with a palm caked hard by dirt, Then

waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt''.

but this only seems to happen when the father is drunk because the

poem opens up with the observation that

''the whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy''

The father might possibly be a very violent man we see this when it

says which tell us that the dad likes a fight or two the poet recalls

how

''the hand which held my wrist was battered on one knuckle'' and

''at every step you missed my right ear scraped a buckle''.

Theodore Roethke writes

''you beat time on my head with a palm...

... middle of paper ...

...home and sins like there's no tomorrow!! Evidence of this is

that it says

"When we got home he'd take off his collar, and his shoes and his

Sunday-special braces; and we'd whisper he's not like God So that he'd

belt us for the noise, and we'd yell''.

I have now discussed all three poems with you and I have to say that

my favourite by far is ''The Early Purges'' I picked early purges

because of its style of writing , Heaney uses the type of language

that we would use in everyday life. It is far easier to understand

because I am used to reading and saying these words. I also like the

poem because of its story line I like the way that at the start the

boy was scared of seeing animals being killed but near the end and the

boy is almost comfortable with killing animals because he says ''I

just shrug ''Bloody pups''.

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