Analysis Of Theodore Roethke ' Root Cellar

I found them growing on a grave, which bore no tombstone, nor other memorial of the dead man, save these ugly weeds, that have taken upon themselves to keep him in remembrance. They grew out of his heart, and typify, it may be, some hideous secret that was buried with him, and which he had done better to confess during his lifetime.' 'Perchance,' said Mr. Dimmesdale, 'he earnestly desired it, but could not.'" Chapter 10, pg. 120

In this allegory the cave represents opinion. The chains represented prejudice. The fire represented the sun. The shadows represent physical objects. The staircase represented philosophy. The outside of the cave represented the transcendental world. The moment of

Objects in the garden that reflect the reality of the lot and not the fantasy of the garden are not transformed into bigger than life images, but silent, unseeing objects. Abandoned cars, weeds, and rotting wood close their eyes and sleep. Sleeping, these objects are hidden, unable to see themselves or others in the garden. “ worms blind and afraid of the light” and “ spiders” hide under the surface of the garden, unable to see the reality of the lot (paragraph 4).

Maxine Kumin uses metaphor, allusion, and imagery to compare the character in the poem to real life people and to represent historical events. Throughout the poem, it seems that the author was referencing the Holocaust. This is revealed in the last stanza when she uses the word “Nazi”. She compares the killing of the woodchucks to the killing of the Jews during the Holocaust. The woodchucks symbolize the Jews as the gardener in the poem symbolizes the Nazis. The gardener killed the woodchucks just like Nazi party killed the Jews. In the third stanza Maxine Kumin includes the line, “I, a lapsed pacifist fallen from grace puffed with Darwinian pieties for killing”. She uses Charles Darwin’s concept of “survival of the fittest” to support her reason for killing the animals. Maxine Kumin also uses allusion throughout the poem to reference the Holocaust. The last stanza of the poem stated, “If only they’d all consented to die unseen gassed underground the quiet Nazi way.” This line clearly reveals how the poem connects to the Holocaust. The first stanza stated, “But they had a sub-sub-basement out of range.” This also references the Holocaust because the woodchucks had other hiding places just like many Jews did while trying to escape Hitler’s ruthless ways.

Cynthia Lee Kotana says it perfectly when she states in her excerpt, "In the first descriptive octave, personification, the giving of human attributes to inanimate objects, is used to drive home the persuasive mood of the poem." (Kotana, Paragraph 6, Sentence1). She is stating that it is at this point in the poem where Roethke begins to paint a picture of the idea he wants to get across to the reader. It seems possible that he was trying to switch the roles of the humans and the inanimate objects. After all, if it was possible for a pencil to feel sadness, or for a manila folder to feel misery, then is it not possible for a human to feel absolutely nothing? The same nothing that we know all of the inanimate objects around us feel? This was a very great technique used by Roethke in trying to bring the reader to look a little deeper into his poem than just to see "misery" and "sadness" and to think what a dark poem it is. It is truly a great skill and takent to be able to make the reader see that he is bringing the "Dead" to life and the "living" to absolute

* ‘This late, the architecture is desolate and reached of colour’’ symbolic, suggests of life having been washed out in the town-devoid of colour.

In the short story, "The Pedestrian," by Ray Bradbury, Bradbury uses imagery to depict a society where people are addicted to technology and warns about the loss of energy, life, and humanity that come with this way of living. Bradbury illustrates this by describing tomb-like houses. When Leonard Mead walks down the street, he describes the picture as such, "... the cottages and homes with their dark windows... it was not unequal to walking through a graveyard... there were whisperings and murmurs where a window in a tomb-like building was open." (Bradbury 1). The imagery in this quote helps the reader conjure up a scene where everyone is "trapped" in their houses, watching T.V., and technology has all but turned their house into a tomb. In

Theodore Roethke was born in Saginaw, Michigan on May 25, 1908 to Otto Roethke and Helen Huebner. Along with uncle, his mother and father owned a local greenhouse, where Roethke spent a lot of his childhood days working and playing. He referred to the greenhouse as “my symbol for the whole of life, a womb, a heaven-on-earth” ( ). The greenhouse played a huge role in his poetry. Roethke implies that only after death of the self can people come to realize the true purpose of life, love. Roethke always had stored in the back of his mind “the idea that personal selves were not the focus of time on earth”( ). Therefore, people must experience the death of their selves before they can truly live.

The tombs, ill-lit by television light, where the people sat like the dead, the gray or multicolored lights touching their faces, but never really touching them” (Bradbury 2). Leonard Mead describes the state that the people are living in great detail to convey their lifeless state. He says that “the tombs” were ill lit by television light. Tombs are usually the graves of the dead, and as the house is dark, it usually means that it lacks life. Leonard Mead then says how the light wasn’t really touching the people, this conveys that they were basically transparent and the light just went through them like they were ghosts. This describes the lifeless trance that the entire society was in as they lacked individuality thus robbing them of their free

Towards the middle of the story during one of the most climactic scenes in the manuscript, it takes place in Louisiana. Most people are familiar with the thick, wet, dark surroundings of the Louisiana bayou, but because of its dense vastness, it continues to be a mystery to almost everyone. The real world mystery is extended to settings around the globe including the heavy fog of London or the deep, vast ocean; as if to say that nobody in is safe from the supernatural forces which are haunting the “story”. When absurd and unrealistic ideas are presented to us, he coats them in science or facts then further obscures them in dark references. Such as the way he describes the “clay bas-relief” locked barrier he was attempting to breach. Before he dove into obscurities, he brought in an expert opinion of an architect then described it very technically has an architect would; after that was established he referenced well known but the largely misunderstood art forms of cubism and futurism. He does this to help focus our imaginations on such an abstract form and keep it realistic enough to be scary. This is also done well when describing the cult he stumbled upon in the woods. Keeping with the theme of intellectual references, he is constantly referring back to prominent

As I mentioned earlier as a child Theodore Roethke spent a lot of his time in the greenhouse his father and uncle owned. He observed nature and its true beauty in unique ways. The years he spent in that greenhouse truly helped him become successful in his writing career. A good number of his most famous works, as well as his less notable works reference nature in some way. I will discuss some of these poems showing the references to nature and repeated themes. Roethke tends to relate life and death to nature using imagery and detailed descriptions to captivate the readers.

The setting is in a graveyard, as it mentions in the story ‘’bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard’’. This negative language creates a barren and colourless setting and nettles in particular are seen as unfavourable objects. ‘’overgrown with nettles’’ states that it was deceived and not looked after. In addition ‘’the dark flat wilderness’’ is used to describe the marshes part of the setting, this shows that it is dark there and it states that there is nobody

Black shapes crouched, lay, sat between the trees, leaning against the trunks, clinging to the earth� in all attitudes of pain, abandonment, and despair� they were nothing earthly now, nothing but black shadows

What really puts everything into perspective is the claim that the poet might have referred to a lizard because it is a cold-blooded creature and depends upon the sun for its body heat, which is where he thinks his wife's beauty amplifies the most. Therefore this analysis only helps build upon Roethke's level of genuineness, so as to make it obvious that he is in fact very serious about expressing his love for his wife, and that by this point in the poem, the reader should not be questioning his true intentions.

“In every little cooped-up, dingy cavern of a hut, faint with the odor of burning Josh-lights and with nothing to see the gloom by save the sickly, guttering tallow candle, were two or three yellow, long-tailed vagabonds, coiled up on a sort of short truckle-bed, smoking