Good morning, today the two poems I will be analysing, comparing and contrasting are, "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke and "One Flesh" by Elizabeth Jennings. The two poems explore and question the human condition of love. In the two poems they show there are different forms of love and this will be explored in more depth later on.
In the poem "My Papa's Waltz" written by Theodore Roethke, can be interpreted in two different ways. Some people think that this poem is one of a happy exchange between a father and son. Other people believe that this poem has a hidden message of parental abuse. The poets use of poetic devices gave the impression of the love between the father and son, not of an abusive relationship.
The poem One Flesh portrays
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a different meaning of love, this poem is between two partners who have grown old and lost affection for one another. This poem shows that the couple don't like communicating with one another and would prefer to stay separate and do their own things whereas My Papa's Waltz is quite the opposite where the father and son are dancing and enjoying each other's company and not afraid to show their affection for one another. The two poems majorly contrast in differences and one major difference is the affection and physical connection.
In "My Papa's Waltz" the father and son are dancing and having a good time whereas in "One Flesh" the couple are 'in separate beds' and 'hardly ever touch.' This shows that between the father and son is a young, strong love and the other couple have grown old and now have a physical and emotional separation in the relationship. The first stanza in One Flesh focuses on the physical separation on a daily basis. It describes how their marriage has resulted in them avoiding each other and any physical contact. The couple no longer sleep in the same beds anymore but even though they are in the same room there is no communication between the two. The man goes to extra effort to avoid communication by just holding a book, he isn't reading, just trying to avoid any conversations amongst the …show more content…
couple. The couple in "One Flesh" act in ways that their marriage is no longer going forward. In the poem it says "tossed up like flotsam from a former passion," a flotsam is sea waste, something like a dead fish floating in the ocean, going nowhere, just like their marriage. This shows that love can be showed in a different way and these to poem's reflect different forms of love. The couple have stayed together despite the weekend marriage and this is because of the memories that have bonded them forever. There are memories of anger, passion, exasperation, love, forgiveness, happiness and joy, these memories have bonded the couple together so closely that even in the loneliness of their situation there is still a sense of companionship. Another thing that is holding the marriage together is the trust they have for one another, the elderly couple have been together for long enough to know that they can trust one another. Whereas in "My Papa's Waltz" the father son relationship is still relatively new and they are trying to make as many memories while they are young.
Also the author of this poem had experienced abandonment issues and that he lost his mother and father at a young age. He could be expressing regret in this poem and stating how he wish he could've shown more affection for his father. The little boy 'hung on like death' whilst they were dancing, this could be referring to not wanting to lose him from his life or let him go again as he's suffered from abandonment. The author could also be expressing that affection shouldn't be hidden when you have the chance you should show your affection for your loved
ones. Theodore Roethke and Elizabeth Jennings ideas contradict each other's thoughts on love. Theodore believes that showing affection with you loved one is key to maintain a healthy relationship whereas Elizabeth says as you grow older and have made memories and built trust affection is no longer needed. The two poets have different opinions of love and this is demonstrated throughout their poems.
The most notable qualities of Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” are the tone and language of the poem which convey the nostalgia adult author feels thinking about the time spent with his father. In the title narrator’s father is affectionately referred to as “Papa” making the impression that the main character and his father are close. The use of possessive pronoun “my” contributes to the overall impression that the father holds special place in the narrator’s heart. As word “waltz” in the title implies the poem gives account of the festive occasion in which the narrator’s father takes part.
My Papa’s Waltz has been compared to a generational litmus test. Depending on what generation the reader was born, could determine how the reader would interpret this poem. Each generation has its own views that have been developed in them for the language used to describe Papa in this poem. The whiskey on his breath and Papa’s hand beating on his head, both sound like a negative connotation. Depending on the experience of the reader, they can either be disturbed by these words or be drawn in closer to the poem. Theodore Roethke loved his father. Not only did he love him, but he idolized him and unfortunately lost him at an early age. This poem is a reflective memorial waltz written in iambic trimeter to honor his father and mother.
In the poem “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, the speaker is reflecting on a childhood experience involving his father. Some people assume that this poem is about a happy relationship between a father and son while other people assume that this poem emphasizes hidden messages of parental abuse. In my
“My Papa 's Waltz”, by Theodore Roethke shows how important a young boys connection to his father really is. Every image in this poem shows overwhelming joy for the boy, whether it be spending time with the father or a late night wrestling session with each other. “Sonny’s blues”, by James Baldwin shows an untold brotherly love throughout each others lives. No matter how difficult the situation may be or how many fights they have, at the end of the day they both truly care about each other. The similarities with their love on both stories show that they always hang onto each other through thick and thin, both showing they cannot live in this world without each other. The differences with love on each other’s story shows a father-and-son bond,
“My Papa’s Waltz” contains imagery that can be interpreted in several ways. When the boy sees his father’s hand that “Was battered on one knuckle” (10), one assumes his battered knuckles are because of hard work or inflicting abuse on his child. The line “With a palm caked hard by dirt” (14) depicts the father as a hard-working laborer. This also suggests that he is pushed to the limit because of his work. As the father and child were in a waltz, the narrator
Family bonds are very important which can determine the ability for a family to get along. They can be between a mother and son, a father and son, or even a whole entire family itself. To some people anything can happen between them and their family relationship and they will get over it, but to others they may hold resentment. Throughout the poems Those Winter Sundays, My Papa’s Waltz, and The Ballad of Birmingham family bonds are tested greatly. In Those Winter Sundays the relationship being shown is between the father and son, with the way the son treats his father. My Papa’s Waltz shows the relationship between a father and son as well, but the son is being beaten by his father. In The Ballad of Birmingham the relationship shown is between
"My Papa 's Waltz," by Theodore Roethke 's, is a poem about a boy who expresses his affection for his father, but at the same time expresses a sense of danger that comes from the father. The poem appears to be a snapshot in time from a child’s memory. The uplifting experience is created through the father and son’s waltz while the father’s uncontrollable movements juxtaposes the menace of the drunken father.
Poems are often designed to express deep feelings and thoughts about a particular theme. In Theodore Roethke’s poem, My Papa’s Waltz, and Ruth Whitman’s poem, Listening to grownups quarreling, the theme of childhood is conveyed through their details, although we can neither see a face nor hear a voice. These poems are very much alike in their ideas of how their memories pertain to the attitudes of their childhood; however, the wording and tones of the two poems are distinct in how they present their memories. The two poems can be compared and contrasted through the author’s use of tone, imagery, and recollection of events; which illustrate each author’s memories of childhood.
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. The memory is
Childhood experiences seem to be the ones that are recollected most vividly throughout a person's life. Almost everyone can remember some aspect of his or her childhood experiences, pleasant and unpleasant alike. Theodore Roethke's poem "My Papa's Waltz" suggests even further that this concept could be true. The dance described in this poem illustrates an interaction between father and child that contains more than the expected joyous, loving attitude between the two characters. Roethke's tone in this work exhibits the blended, yet powerful emotions that he, as a grown man, feels when looking back on this childhood experience. The author somewhat implicates feelings of resentment fused with a loving reliance with his father.
...nderstanding. I know when I first read the poem I thought that the poem was negative and about a father beating a boy, but once I read it again I got a fuller understanding of what it meant. The author wants the readers to pounder whether or not the poem is negative or positive. However, I get the sense of a positive poem through the author’s use of imagery, word choice, and meter. The author puts the image of a boy and his father dancing around like the waltz. Roethke chose his words very well when he was writing this poem. McKenna said that he changed the words in his poem several times, especially the title (34). Then, the author uses the poem through meter as a sense of the dance through unstressed and stressed syllables. From the evidence, I strongly believe that “My Papa’s Waltz” is about a young boy looking for affection from his father, even if he is drunk.
...perpetrated on the small child (13). Tapped or stroked may have been a more tactile image designated in the place of the word “beat” if this was truly a frolicking moment between a father and son. The next line, “With a palm caked hard by dirt,” the speaker uses this syntax to sympathize with the father and excusing his actions based his working class upbringing (14). The last two lines of the poem, “Then waltzed me off to bed / Still clinging to your shirt,” as the action diminishes, the child is clearly grasping in terror, afraid to let go of his father for fear of reprisal (15, 16). The word “clinging” is a denotation of the speaker adhering to a memory of his past.
“My Papa’s Waltz” is a poem written by Theodore Roethke describing a son’s memory of his drunken father. At the start of the poem, one might assume that it is a poem about how the father beats the son, but it does not specifically say that it is about domestic violence. It simply states that the father was drunk and that he and his son were “waltzing” around the house. To some, the act of “waltzing” is an act of love, despite the father being drunk. To others, it could mean that the father was abusive and was harming his son. As one continues reading the poem, one might question whether the poem is about violence at all.
Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz" is about a relationship between a father and his son. Beginning with the title, the author's meticulous choice of voca...
While the subject of “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke has spurred passionate academic debate from professors, scholars, and students alike, the imagery and syntax of the poem clearly support the interpretation that Roethke writes “My Papa’s Waltz” to have mixed complexed opinions within the reader's inner soul for which many think the poem was about a young child getting abused by his dad but it comes to find out that it was an uplifting poem of a dad who drank that night and was play fighting with his son.