Roethkes Use of Tone Essay -- My Papas Waltz Poems Poetry Essays

Roethkes Use of ToneChildhood experiences seem to be the ones that are recollected most vividly th close toout a persons life. Almost everyone backside remember some aspect of his or her childhood experiences, pleasant and unpleasant alike. Theodore Roethkes poem My Papas Waltz suggests even further that this concept could be true. The dance depict in this poem illustrates an interaction between induce and child that contains more than the expected joyous, lovely attitude between the two characters. Roethkes tone in this recreate 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.For example, the first two lines of the poem read The whiskey on your breath/ Could make a small male child dizzy (Roethke 668). This excerpt appears to enclothe a dark sort of mood for the entire rest of the poem. By the first two lines, the reader may already see how this man feels about(predicate) his fathers drunkenness. It seems as if Roethke has preceded his poem with this factor in order to demonstrate the resentment that he feels toward his father.However, the last two lines of the poem suggest feelings other than resentment because waltzed me off to bed/ Still clinging to your shirt (Roethke 668). By mentioning the fact that his father put him to bed, Roethke seems to show affectionate feelings tie 2involved in this dance. He shows his caring feelings in the last line by using the words still clinging. Certainly, this small boys family life has its f overcompensateening side, but the last line suggests the boy is still clinging to his father with persistent if also complicated love (Kennedy and Gioia 668). Although their dance appears to be comic, Roethke seems to possess an odd and ambivalent closeness to his apparently inebriated father (Balakian 62).Still even more evidence of these mixed feelin gs is illustrated in the third stanza. This love dance, a kind of blood rite between father and son, shows suppressed terror combined with awe-inspired dependency (Balakian 62). The hand that held my wrist/was battered on one knuckle/ At every step you missed/ My right ear scraped a buckle(Roethke 668). The speakers fathers hand being battered on one knuckle is indicative of a man who... ... quite demonstrative of how Bridges 5powerful his feelings for his father must have been. Roethke tried, through careful revisions to balance negative and positive tones in My Papas Waltz (McKenna 36).Although the dance between him and his father was rough and aggressive, the very fact that Roethke chose to write about the waltz indicates that it is a special chip he remembers sharing with his father. The poet has a remarkable ability to describe the moment and not his feelings. This is what makes My Papas Waltz so interesting and leaves so much to interpretation.Works CitedBalakian, Peter. The odore Roethkes Far Fields. Baton Rouge LouisianaState University Press, 1989.Gioia, Dana, & Kennedy, X. J. (Eds.). (1999). Literature An Introduction to Fiction,Poetry, and Drama. seventh Edition. New York, NY Longman.McKenna, John J. Roethkes Revisions and the Tone of My Papas Waltz. ANQ Spring 1998 v11n2. Online. Galileo. 21 October 1999.Roethke, Theodore. My Papas Waltz., Literature An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry,And Drama. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 7th Ed. New York, NY Longman, 1999. 668.