In a Dark Time by Theodore Roethke

The main theme in the book, The Dark is Rising, is obviously the conflict between the dark and light. It is one of the many suspenseful fantasy books about the battle between good and evil, Susan Cooper wrote about the dark, light, and the mystical powers.

The quote "Character is what you are in the dark" - Dwight Lyman Moody has a few meanings. Mostly it means that you're different when you're alone. When you're around people they are influences of some sort. If you get into a situation when you're with people you might react differently than if you were alone, resulting in a different outcome. A lot of the time people aren't their true self around friends, or family, or whoever it may be for many reasons. A big reason is they don't want to be judged. Maybe they wanna look "cool" or get popular for something. Maybe they think they'll be looked at differently for being who they truly are. So basically fear of what others think keeps us from being who we really are. Fear can make us act different,

Do you like horror books? Well if you do you’ll like this one. The book “After Dark” by James Leck, is about a boy named Charlie Harker, who has just finished school. He soon finds out that he’ll have to help renovate a old family inn his family owns. There are 252 pages in this book. ``The point of view in this book is third person objective. The genre of this book is horror.

Most children are not very fond of reading books in school. I was one of those children until I read a novel called, “The Other Side of Dark” written by Joan Lowery Nixon in the 4th grade. My school had held a book fair during the week of open house. As a child, all children want the toys and games they had at the book fair, not bothering to even glance at the books. My mother told me to look for a book that was not only easy for me to read but something that I would enjoy. I walked around our petite library, which was where the book fair was being held, and scanned the various novels that were displayed until one caught my eye. I was only 10 years old looking for a book without the knowledge of what types of literature that interested me. As I turned the corner at the end of the library I caught a glimpse of a hardcover novel called “The Other Side of Dark”. On the back of novel I read the synopsis which was about a 13 year-old girl who was shot and put into coma until she was 17 years old waking up to discovering that her family was also murdered by the same person who shot her 4 years ago. I was quickly captivated by this summary on the back of the novel and persuaded to read further. Open house was coming to an end and my family and I headed back to our house in La Mirada, California. One of our homework assignments was to read at least 20 minutes a night to improve our reading skills. We quickly arrived at our home and I

Darkness at Noon, written by British novelist Arthur Koestler in 1940, is a criticism of Stalinism and the methods used by the Communist Party in the USSR. The novel was set in 1938 during the Stalinist Great Purge and Moscow show trials. Even though the story depicts actual occurrences, it does not specifically name either Russia or the USSR, but the characters do have Russian names while other generic terms are used to depict individuals and associations. For instance, the Soviet government is alluded to as "the Party" and Nazi Germany is alluded to as "the Dictatorship." Joseph Stalin, a terrorizing dictator, is represented by "Number One." The novel is a strong and moving picture of a Communist revolutionary caught up in the terror

The experience of darkness is both individual and universal. Within Emily Dickinson’s “We grow accustomed to the Dark” and Robert Frost’s “Acquainted with the Night,” the speakers engage in an understanding of darkness and night as much greater than themselves. Every individual has an experience of the isolation of the night, as chronicled in Frost’s poem, yet it is a global experience that everyone must face, on which Dickinson’s poem elaborates. Through the use of rhythm, point of view, imagery, and mood, each poet makes clear the fact that there is no single darkness that is too difficult to overcome.

Howard Thurman removes the window dressing in the African American experience of segregation in America. Thurman in his book, “The Luminous Darkness” paints an obscure portrait that delved deep into the consciousness of Black men, women and children freshly freed from chattel slavery. Two hundred years of slavery and one hundred years of darkness seeping into each soul perpetuated by an evil explained only through the Word of God. Although this book was published in the 60’s, the stigma segregation continues resonate in the souls of those who remember and perhaps even in the souls of those who do not.

All the light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr, chronicles the lives and relationship between Marie and Werner, two children who grew up in France and Germany. The society around them forces discriminatory ideals that cloud their perception of the world, but they find its meaning through their own self-definition. In this, they are both guided by a single radio and the message and legacy that it contains. Throughout the book, the author isolated the two characters, but also created subtle connections between the two. The most important of which would be the radio. It created a bond between the two where they learned from each other’s experiences and struggles. All the Light We Cannot See recreates a new picture of the world by contrasting the two separate journeys taken by Marie- Laure LeBlanc and Werner Pfennig to gain that image, which is guided by the power of a radio and the message it contains, ultimately leading to the meeting of the two characters that officially forms an image of the world where one’s actions are valued more than one’s physical features.

     William Stafford’s "Traveling through the dark" is beautifully written poem that expresses one of life’s most challenging aspects. It is the story of a man’s solitary struggle to deal with a tragic event that he encounters.

Plato’s philosophical writing, “Allegory of the Cave,” discusses the plight of trapped individuals that cease to see light in an otherwise dark environment. Sherman Alexie’s “This Is What It Means To Say Phoenix, Arizona” details a struggling young man coping with the loss of his distant father. With the loss of his father, Victor finds himself trapped and begins spiraling down a dark path. Plato’s writing provides a philosophical abstract to relate Victor’s enlightening.

Admittedly, Roethke uses imagery to convey the devoted relationship of him and his father. For instance, in the first paragraph the author illustrates, “. . .whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy. . . hung on like death; such waltzing was not easy.” Despite the fact that Roethke’s father is intoxicated, he still hangs on to him. These phrases help highlight the idea that Roethke has a doting relationship with his father and his unwillingness to leave him. Further in the poem, “We romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf,” reveals their playful relationship. One can see from this, the crashing of the pots and the sounds of laughter. On another note, the mother has a facial expression that “could not unfrown itself.” This phrase helps reveal that the mother isn’t involved in their play. She does not favor the fact that her pots are jumbling all over her kitchen. As well as in the last stanza, Roethke illustrates that his father’s hand is

“Roethke was a great poet, the successor to Frost and Stevens in modern American poetry, and it is the measure of his greatness that his work repays detailed examination” (Parini 1). Theodore Roethke was a romantic who wrote in a variety of styles throughout his long successful career. However, it was not the form of his verse that was important, but the message being delivered and the overall theme of the work. Roethke was a deep thinker and often pondered about and reflected on his life. This introspection was the topic of much of his poetry. His analysis of his self and his emotional experiences are often expressed in his verse. According to Ralph J. Mills Jr., “this self interest was the primary matter of

With “Night,” the eighth poem and first of the second section, darkness descends, bringing with it a series of scenes horrifying and pathetic.

Although the father has a rough exterior, is a man of few words, and is not the most sensitive man, the imagery used within this poem hints at the father being a hero in his young son’s eyes. Lastly, Roethke creates the picture of a loving relationship as the narrator states that his father “waltzed me off to bed/Still clinging to your shirt” (15-16). Based upon the imagery used, Roethke reveals an openly affectionate relationship between a hard-working father and his son.

Theodore Roethke is able to make readers emphasize to his poems by using people’s common life experience as a child in his poetry. By using people’s common experience, Roethke is able to describe his theme about human life and nature easier that every reader can understand. Bobby Fong states, “‘My papa’s Waltz’ is characterized as depicting the father's ‘mixture of tenderness and brutality’ and the child's ‘admiration and fear’” (78). In “My Papa’s Waltz”, it gives readers a image of a father and a child while they read through the poem. Roethke writes, “The hand that held my wrist / was battered on one knuckle; / At every step you missed / My right ear scraped a buckle” (Poetry Foundation). This stanza gives readers a child’s point of view to his father. Specifically, these stanzas gives a image of a caring father. Roethke successfully delivered the peaceful, warm image of dad so that everybody can relate themselves to this poem because everybody have a memory of a youth life with