My Father's Song Poem Analysis

he explains how his father’s motive for loving him and raising becomes a challenge for the son to accept, because of his adolescent behavior and likewise in Sharon Old’s poem “The Possessive” the narrator would describe how uncomfortable she felt when she her daughter grow up too fast. Both poems use a narrative that suggest that there are

A father-son bond is supped to be pleasurable like the dance, but instead it is a rough experience like the

The speaker in this poem uses diction, specifically colors, to create a warm tone that is associated with aspects of her childhood in order to shape the image of her identity. Phrases like “the yellow brown of Mama’s cheeks,” “burnt umber pride,” and “ochre gentleness” employ unconventional adjectives

Comparing and contrasting Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” and Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz”, one finds the two poems are similar with their themes of abuse, yet contrasting with how the themes are portrayed. Furthermore, the speaker 's feelings toward their fathers’ in each poem contrast. One speaker was hurt by the father and the other speaker was indifferent about how he was treated by his father. The fathers’ feelings toward the children are also different despite how each treated the child. Both poems accurately portray the parent-child relationships within an abusive home, even if they have different

Throughout “My Papa’s Waltz” and “Those Winter Sundays”, the author’s reflect on how their fathers were hard workers, although each memory is emotionally different. In “My Papa’s Waltz”, Roethke remembers his father coming home from work and his hands “Was battered on one knuckle” (Line 10). Even though the father had a long day at work, the boy recounts him coming home and dancing with him. Whereas “Those Winter Sundays”, Hayden recalls his fathers hard work by describing his “Cracked hands that ached/

The relationship between father and son is one that is both sacred, yet complex as each side of the relationship faces hardships. This relationship between a son and his role model, a father and his child, is one, has its ups, but one must also know it has downs. In Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz,” Roethke’s use of ambiguity through diction allows room for the audience to interpret the text in a positive or a negative way, representing the relationship between a father and a son, which on the outside can be interpreted in an either positive or a negative way. Roethke’s use of diction creates an element of confusion for the audience of his poem.

Theodore Roethke’s poem, “My Papa’s Waltz,” discusses a child and father’s interactions within their kitchen as the mother watches while frowning. Roethke delivers his work through the child’s perspective, an unreliable speaker, which enables an ambiguous tone. This allows the reader to interpret the child and father’s relationship in many ways. Words involved in Roethke’s diction, such as “waltzed,” “romped,” and “dizzy,” indicate enjoyment within the relationship. On the other hand, “beat,” “death,” and “battered” create a sinister picture of abuse.

Love in that poem is being expressed through duty, responsibility, and obligation. The father is fulfilling his duties and responsibilities to take care of his family. I guess this is his way of expressing love to his family and his son. In conclusion, the poets expresses their feelings, thoughts, and emotions through poetry.

In the poem, My Papa’s Waltz, the speaker, Theodore Roethke, writes about a father and son waltzing. Further investigation suggests there is more going on than a waltz. The poet utilizes figure of speech and a negative toned vocabulary throughout the poem. Thus, alleviating the reader of the harsh truth of an abusive relationship whilst never dehumanizing the father.

“In that instant I feel the thinness of his arms.” Rodriguez states this about his father and the current state that he is in. This is the first encounter and time Rodriguez and his father exchanged words that night. The reader can infer that his father is still upset about him being fluent in English. Rodriguez also notices the state his father is in and that he is getting old and that his mother looks very sad.

The peaceful melody of this new room allows the reader to have a more relaxed and trusting mindset about this group of women. In addition, a lullaby is a song a mother sings to a child, giving these women motherly qualities in the reader’s mind. Because these women seem sweet, gentle, and motherly, the poet conveys that they are genuine and can be trusted. Though the world in “Sonrisas” may be fictional, through her usage of poetic devices Pat Mora paints an accurate picture of real life, where not everyone means everything that they

In the final analysis, most readers of this poem tend to deduce a dark theme of physical violence due to its tone, word choice and imagery. Nonetherless, Roethke balances positive and negative tones of the poem to give it a rich and ambiguous quality. The exceeding tendency to paint the picture of child abuse deprives it, of this quality. “My Papa’s Waltz,” illustrates a special and powerful moment, shared between a father and a son through a waltz.

The boy’s mother had a face that “could not unfrown itself” meaning that she was an unhappy wife in a brutal marriage. Mothers are known to be the nice, soft, and loving person in the family. In this poem a mother seems to be the opposite. She is standing in the kitchen watching defensively as her husband is beating her only son. This sets a picture in your mind that the father and son “waltz” is not a pleasant one at

Author Erica Funkhouser’s speaker, the child of the farm laborer, sets the tone in “My Father’s Lunch,” through their narrative recount of the lunch traditions set by their father preceding the end of a hard days worth of work. The lunch hour was a reward that the children anticipated; “for now he was ours” (14). The children are pleased by the felicity of the lunch, describing the “old meal / with the patina of a dream” (38-39) and describing their sensibilities as “provisional peace” (45). Overall, the tone of the poem is one of a positive element, reinforced by gratitude.

Also it is depicted how the father is cruel and at the same time gentle. Booby Fang , a literary analyst, showed how this poem can have mixed feelings of interpretation. He mentions how the poem is like a seesaw where the elements of joy, which Fang notes as the figure of the waltz and the rhythm it has, balances with elements of fear which he mentions happens through the effects of diction used in the novel such as the words like romped, scraped, beat, and whiskey. The narrator in the poem is remembering an incident in his childhood which shows that thet there were qualities in his father that were good and bad. He mentions that the achievement of this poem is that it permits readers to access such powerful memories in their own lives in ways consistent with the words and construction of the