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The waking poem by theodore roethke diction
Imagery used in the awakening
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In Theodore Roethke’s self-reflexive poem, “The Waking,” the speaker considers the brevity of life experienced within the constraints of time, while contemplating the uncertainties encountered by an individual, who realizes an earthly and a spiritual nature, in the face of the unknown realm of what lies beyond what the human eye can see. The speaker employs unique imagination and figurative language, and the rhyming patterns and refrains of the poem’s outer form enact the speaker’s feelings about the cycle of life, as the plot of the “The Waking” transcends both time and space. The title itself carries the connotation of a stirring or reviving of consciousness, as expressed in a metaphor of waking from sleep, and this forms the basic scheme of the poem.
Roethke’s villanelle, “The Waking,” written in iambic pentameter with a distinct rhyme scheme, flows smoothly from stanza to stanza. The topic of waking and sleeping or, more specifically, the cycle of life and death, is enhanced by the rhythmic movement of the poem’s outer form. Additionally, each stanzas is linked by a combination of two refrains that declare, “I sleep to wake and take my waking slow” (1, 6, 12, 18), and I “learn by going where I have to go” (3, 9, 15, 19). The repetition of these two lines provides a distinct rhythm that skillfully marks the passing of time. What is inferred by these two lines, and what is the significance of their repeated use by the speaker?
The first of several paradoxes in “The Waking,” the refrain, “I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow” seems to express the existence of an altered state of consciousness during sleep, and in life’s limited time frame, the speaker decides to make the most of the journey. At the outset of the poem, the sp...
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...ns remain. The conclusion forms a complete circle as the speaker declares with reinforced certainty, “I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I learn by going where I have to go” (18-19). Finally, “The Waking” is a moving look at the paradoxical cycle of life, and the poetic form of this villanelle is perfectly enacted in its mystical language, rhyming patterns, and refrains.
Works Cited
Holy Bible, New American Standard Translation. Web. 15 Nov. 2013.
Roethke, Theodore. “The Waking.” Poems, Poets, Poetry, an Introduction and Anthology,
3rd Edition. Ed. Helen Vendler. Boston/New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010. 571-572. Print.
“Theodore Roethke.” The Poetry Archive. Faber and Faber, Library of America, n.d. Web. 15
Nov. 2013.
Vendler, Helen. Poems, Poets, Poetry, an Introduction and Anthology, 3rd Edition.
Boston/New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2010. Print.
Kate Chopin’s The Awakening takes place in the late 19th century, in Grande Isle off the coast of Louisiana. The author writes about the main character, Edna Pontellier, to express her empowering quality of life. Edna is a working housewife,and yearns for social freedom. On a quest of self discovery, Edna meets Madame Ratignolle and Mademoiselle Reisz, falls in and out of love,and eventually ends up taking her own life. Kate Chopin’s The Awakening shows how the main character Edna Pontellier has been trapped for so many years and has no freedom, yet Edna finally “awakens” after so long to her own power and her ability to be free.
In the end of the narrator’s consciousness, the tone of the poem shifted from a hopeless bleak
The timeline carries on chronologically, the intense imagery exaggerated to allow the poem to mimic childlike mannerisms. This, subjectively, lets the reader experience the adventure through the young speaker’s eyes. The personification of “sunset”, (5) “shutters”, (8) “shadows”, (19) and “lamplights” (10) makes the world appear alive and allows nothing to be a passing detail, very akin to a child’s imagination. The sunset, alive as it may seem, ordinarily depicts a euphemism for death, similar to the image of the “shutters closing like the eyelids”
Chopin, Kate. "The Awakening." The Norton Anthology of American Literature.. Gen. ed. Nina Baym. 8th ed. Vol. C. New York: Norton, 2012. 561-652. Print.
For many people, the early hours of the morning can hold numerous possibilities from time for quiet reflections to beginning of the day observations to waking up and taking in the fresh air. In the instance of the poems “Five A.M.” and “Five Flights Up,” respective poets William Stafford and Elizabeth Bishop write of experiences similar to these. However, what lies different in their styles is the state of mind of the speakers. While Stafford’s speaker silently reflects on his walk at dawn from a philosophical view of facing the troubles that lie ahead in his day, Bishop’s speaker observes nature’s creations and their blissful well-being after the bad day had before and the impact these negative thoughts have on her psychological state in terms
Throughout his villanelle, “Saturday at the Border,” Hayden Carruth continuously mentions the “death-knell” (Carruth 3) to reveal his aged narrator’s anticipation of his upcoming death. The poem written in conversation with Carruth’s villanelle, “Monday at the River,” assures the narrator that despite his age, he still possesses the expertise to write a well structured poem. Additionally, the poem offers Carruth’s narrator a different attitude with which to approach his writing, as well as his death, to alleviate his feelings of distress and encourage him to write with confidence.
Critics of Kate Chopin's The Awakening tend to read the novel as the dramatization of a woman's struggle to achieve selfhood--a struggle doomed failure either because the patriarchal conventions of her society restrict freedom, or because the ideal of selfhood that she pursue is a masculine defined one that allows for none of the physical and undeniable claims which maternity makes upon women. Ultimately. in both views, Edna Pontellier ends her life because she cannot have it both ways: given her time, place, and notion of self, she cannot be a mother and have a self. (Simons)
Ranging from caged parrots to the meadow in Kentucky, symbols and settings in The Awakening are prominent and provide a deeper meaning than the text does alone. Throughout The Awakening by Kate Chopin, symbols and setting recur representing Edna’s current progress in her awakening. The reader can interpret these and see a timeline of Edna’s changes and turmoil as she undergoes her changes and awakening.
Yet, according to Yaeger, The Awakening does deserve to be read as “one of the great subversive novels” and for reasons entirely unrelated to the plot mechanics attending Edna’s adulterous urges. A “real transgressive force” animates this novel, Yaeger argues, gathering a narrative momentum through its successive attempts to articulate a language that corresponds to Edna’s interior landscape, “a language which nobody understood,” as Chopin’s narrator says. While Edna may never possess this language nor delight in sharing its spoken cadences with another, the reader of The Awakening experiences a gradual liberatio...
Meinke, Peter. “Untitled” Poetry: An Introduction. Ed. Michael Meyer. 6th ed. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s 2010. 89. Print
In Kate Chopin’s novel The Awakening, the protagonist Enda Pontellier experiences internal conflict as she journeys to her self-discovery. As she becomes aware of her supressed being within society and distances herself away in solitude, Enda is able to discover her essential self. Symbols and imagery such as the sea and the birds along with the physical setting of the novel, are constantly repeated in Chopin’s novel in order to demonstrate Enda’s progression to discovering her essential self and ultimately her spiritual awakening.
“To be awake means to be alive”, and to be awake during the time of Romanticism meant one could witness literature as an intellectual achievement. Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Walt Whitman were three authors during this time that wrote about an idea that would later become the theme of many papers, discussions and lectures, Wakefulness. Though some may not have recognized the significance of these authors’ work at the time, their ideas and beliefs have captivated the minds of many people. Wakefulness, the idea of intellectual exertion throughout everyday life is essential to becoming self-reliant, creating a more intellectual and better community, and becoming closer to god.
Kate Chopin’s The Awakening should be seen as depicting the discontentment that comes from self-gratification rather than the glorification of delighting in one’s fantasies. Chopin describes the central idea of one who is seeking to please her personal needs and desires and, in the process, neglects to notice how her actions affect others. The protagonist, Edna, is not able to find peace or happiness in the accepted daily life that a woman of her era and social status should have. The fulfilling of her desires could essentially cause social ostracism for her, her husband, and her children, yet she is unable to find repose in living the typical social Victorian life. The final resolve of her “awakening” to her desires, her ultimate suicide, is not an honorable position that women should strive toward as a romantic ideal because her desires were hopeless in her situation. Through Edna’s striving for personal satisfaction, she loses the joys that daily life has to offer.
In the late nineteen forties, Theodore Roethke emerged with a poem that has been the source of much debate. "My Papa's Waltz," is an account of a relationship between son and father. Alas, many readers who are exposed to this piece fail to note the love present in the connection of the characters. In an attempt to illuminate the author's true intention several factors must be examined. After several examinations of Roethke's poem as well as learning of his childhood it is evident that this poem does not suggest an abusive environment, but is an appreciative account of the love and playfulness between the characters. Therefore, a successful interpretation of this poem will look beyond the four stanzas and study not only the history of the writing, but the life of the poet.
Kate Chopin's novel, The Awakening details the endeavors of heroine Edna Pontellier to cope with the realization that she is not, nor can she ever be, the woman she wants to be. Edna has settled for less. She is married for all the wrong reasons, saddled with the burden of motherhood, and trapped by social roles that would never release her. The passage below is only one of the many tender and exquisitely sensory passages that reveal Edna’s soul to the reader.