Essay Comparing My Papa's Waltz And Sylvia Plath

One of the most difficult, yet rewarding roles is that of a parent. The relationship between and parent and child is so complex and important that a parents relationship with her/his child can affect the relationship that the child has with his/her friends and lovers. A child will watch their parents and use them as role models and in turn project what the child has learned into all of the relationship that he child will have. The way a parent interacts with his/her child has a huge impact on the child’s social and emotional development. Such cases of parent and child relationships are presented in Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” and Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy”. While Roethke and Plath both write about a dynamic between a child-father relationship that seems unhealthy and abusive, Plath writes about a complex and tense child-father relationship in which the child hates her father, whereas Roethke writes about a complex and more relaxed child-father relationship in which the son loves his father. Through the use of tone, rhyme, meter, and imagery, both poems illustrate different child-father relationships in which each child has a different set of feelings toward their father.

The figurative language in the poem “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath can be used to discover a deeper significant of the poem. By using figurative language throughout the poem such as symbolism, imagery, and wordplay, Plath reveals hidden messages about her relationship with her father. Plath uses symbols of Nazis, vampires, size, and communication to help reveal a message about her dad.

Sylvia Plath uses her poem, Daddy, to express deep emotions toward her father’s life and death. With passionate articulation, she verbally turns over her feelings of rage, abandonment, confusion and grief. Though this work is fraught with ambiguity, a reader can infer Plath’s basic story. Her father was apparently a Nazi soldier killed in World War II while she was young. Her statements about not knowing even remotely where he was while he was in battle, the only photograph she has left of him and how she chose to marry a man that reminded her of him elude to her grief in losing her father and missing his presence. She also expresses a dark anger toward him for his political views and actions

In the third stanza of the poem, Roethke points out to the readers that his father was continuously missing steps while they were waltzing. “At every step you missed / my right ear scraped a buckle.” (11-12) . This demonstrates that because of the fact that his father missed steps since he was drunk, resulted in the poet being physically hurt. This part of the poem reveals that the father is now becoming abusive. Roethke’s use of the word “death” in the first stanza, right away implies that the poet was frightened by his father. In the second stanza the poet uses the word “romp” which is associated with playing roughly. This also indicates that it was not very safe for the poet to be waltzing with his father. The mother frowning also demonstrates that she does not approve of this activity. The last stanza of the poem reaffirms that there was violence present. Roethke states “You beat time on my head / With a palm caked hard by dirt.” (13-14) . The father’s hand “caked hard by dirt” demonstrates that the father was a hard labor worker but the use of the word “beat” makes this line

In the poem “Daddy,” Sylvia Plath describes her true feelings about her deceased father. Throughout the dialogue, the reader can find many instances that illustrate a great feeling of hatred toward the author’s father. She begins by expressing her fears of her father and how he treated her. Subsequently she conveys her outlook on the wars being fought in Germany. She continues by explaining her life since her father and how it has related to him.

Throughout time, fathers and daughters have had special relationships. Some, the best relationship a girl could ever hope for. For others, the relationship is not so great. Sylvia Plath and Lucille Clifton wrote poems describing the darker side of a father-daughter relationship. Their poems demonstrate them in different ways. The poets of “Forgiving my Father” and “Daddy” demonstrate the theme, unresolved anger leads to lifelong bitterness, because both narrators hate their fathers for lying, blame their fathers for ruining their lives, and, finally, learning to cut their fathers out of their lives.

Due to Theodore Roethke’s use of imagery, syntax, and diction, “My Papa’s Waltz” continues to spur passionate academic debate from professors, scholars, and students alike. Roethke uses these elements to allow the reader to recognize that he is reminiscing the intricate relationship he and his father shared. Although it is not essential, one could put the historical context into consideration. Evidently, there will always be individuals that see only abuse or a fond memory; however, we will never clearly know what his intention was in regards to the purpose of the poem. As a result, one must come to a realization based on the author’s use of diction, syntax, and imagery throughout the poem broken-down line by line; in order to fully

This poem describes the playful relationship between a father and a child as they romp around the house together. In the last stanza, Roethke writes, “you beat time on my head / With a palm caked hard by dirt, / then waltzed me off to bed / still clinging to your shirt” (Roethke 935). This uses imagery in order to show that even though the father had a long day at work, demonstrated by the dirt on his hand, he still found the time to play with his child and make memories. This shows the love he has for his child is very strong, and contributes the unbreakable bond they have. The dirt is symbolic of the strength and roughness the father possesses, which he uses both in his work and while playing with his child. The waltz is a metaphor for their playing and how they are not just walking, but making it into a complicated dance. Comparing their playing and romping around to a waltz shows that their playing is affectionate, while using the imagery of the father’s dirty hands adds to the idea that they are still rough with each other. This proves the unbreakable bond exists between these two because it shows that even after a long, hard day, and even after he had been drinking, the father still wants to be with his child. While they are playing, they get so rough that they begin to

In “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, was a great poem that can mean many different things to many different people of this world. To me I think it was just a boy who just wanted to spend time with his dad before he has to go to bed. The boy probably does not get to spend time with his dad that much. The father probably works all day and all week and this is the only time the boy gets to spend with him. Roethke use of words in this poem is amazing. The use of the words in this story can mean different things to the reader. The first word to look at is the word waltz. In the dictionary the word waltz is a dance for a fast triple meter song. This is just what the father is doing with his son but his is drunk and dizzy. “But I hung on

Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” is narrated by a child who might not know what child mistreatment is, so the child makes sense of it. Though it could also be that the kid is just dancing with his dad when the father comes home drunk after going to a bar. The poem starts out by describing how drunk the father is saying that it “could make a small boy dizzy,” this says that the father is really drunk (Roethke 552). The boy says that the “waltzing was not easy,” this could refer to dancing with his drunk dad or that the father is harming the child and that the son is linking it to a dance instead of a beating (Roethke 552). It is because of this

A child’s future is usually determined by how their parent’s raise them. Their characteristics reflect how life at home was like, if it had an impeccable effect or destroyed the child’s entire outlook on life. Usually, authors of any type of literature use their experiences in life to help inspire their writing and develop emotion to their works. Poetry is a type of literary work in which there is an intensity given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinct styles and rhythm. These distinct styles include different types of poems such as sonnets, villanelles, free verse, imagist poems, and many more. And these distinct styles are accentuated with the use of literary devices such as metaphors, similes, imagery, personification, rhyme, meter, and more. As a whole, a poem depicts emotions the author and reader’s can relate to. In the poem’s “Those Winter Sundays,” by Robert Hayden, and “My Papa’s Waltz,” by Theodore Roethke, we read about two different parent and child relationships. These two poems help portray the flaws and strength’s parents exhibit and how their children follow their actions and use it as a take away in their grown up lives.

The relationship between a parent and child is an unbreakable bond. Especially a father and daughter relationship, that is how we got the saying “Daddy’s Little Girl.” In the two poems “Daddy” written by Sylvia Plath and “My Papa’s Waltz written by Theodore Roethke we see how each poet expresses their parental relationships in their poems. “Daddy, I have had to kill you. You died before I had time.” (Sylvia 1-2) In the poem, “Daddy” we are introduced to the speaker/narrator and their father's relationship. Comparing him to Hitler and the Devil we assume that their relationship was not the greatest. While in the poem “My Papa’s Waltz”, he has a different appreciation for his father, which is loving and affectionate, we can analyze this by reading the keywords used in the title, “Papa” and “Waltz” we get a sense that the young boy in his poem, who we believe to be Theodore Roethke, loves his father dearly as he calls him papa and dances the night away with him. Both Sylvia Plath and Theodore

Sylvia Plath’s poem “Daddy,” is about a girl who has lost her father at a young age, and since his death, she cannot stop thinking about him. The speaker appears to be Plath consumed in metaphors that resemble the way she feels about her father and former husband. Plath’s father passed away when she was only eight in the poem she states, “I was ten when they buried you. At twenty I

Inspired by their true-life memories, Plath and Sexton explore a variety of themes in their poems. They both have different aspects of the relationship between a father and a daughter. The fathers in Sexton and Plath’s life had a major position and made an influence on their life and in their

Imagine growing up with a father so cruel, he haunts you far beyond his death. Well, in the poem "Daddy", this nightmare is a reality. The speaker of the poem is nearly 30 years old before she can finally put her demons to rest. Her father has left her in ruins, unable to maintain a healthy mind or a stable life. Sylvia Plath paints this vivid picture of this nightmare using a number of allusions. While Plath begins the poem with childish, innocent allusions, she soon switches to horrid references of the Holocaust and demons to depict the evil of the speaker 's father.