Samantha Lacewell Professor David Miller English 2328 February 20, 2015 Theodore Roethke's Elegy for Jane: My Student, Thrown by a Horse Theodore Roethke was born in Saginaw in 1908 and grew up in the house now preserved as The Theodore Roethke Home Museum. He worked in his grandfather’s floral company, which his experience there inspired many of his poems. After graduating college, he taught at several colleges. He would later receive a Pulitzer Prize for “The Waking”, which included the short poem “Elegy for Jane”, along with two National Book Awards and a Bollingen Prize from Yale in 1959 (1). In conclusion, while visiting with friends at Bainbridge Island in 1963, Washington, Roethke suffered a fatal heart attack. During the last years …show more content…
The comparison of Jane as a small delicate little bird, who sings, is flipped into a dull brown colored bird that does not do much; reflects the fragile state Jane is in. It is pointed out that Jane in absence, so the reader is left to assume that the poet is referring to Jane after her passing and how she led her life in the shadows; it may even be describing her complex inner conflict with herself and how she struggles in life with it. The wet stones may be referring to her head stone and the teacher may be sitting by her gravesite; grieving her and the memories are not helping ease the pain. Roethke appears to be peeling back the layers of the grieving process from the teacher, in which he appears to be struggling …show more content…
The writer states that, he mentions my maimed darling, leading us to believe her death was extremely unfortunate and left Jane mangled. Then again, Jane was compared to another bird, this time flighty like a pigeon that you approach in a park. The teacher really had an emotional connection to this young girl and is still suffering from her loss, as he was not her father or lover just someone who cared deeply for her. He mentions he had no legal rights or any power of attorney over her affairs as he was not her partner or her father. Apparently Jane was recently buried at the grave, since the dirt had not settled and was still wet. The picture illustrated of Jane expressed that she was a complex individual who brightened the world but due to her depression, she was unable to see her effect on the world around her and the people she left behind who will forever keep Jane as a part of
Jane begins her life in isolation at Gateshead, abused and misunderstood by her Aunt Reed and cousins. She is constantly reminded of her worthlessness to them and the fact that they view her as a burden, and is literally
I will start with the world, “heartsick” because this word relates to the feelings that the granddaughter felt for the yarning of the comforts of her home. The sorrows drowned out by the panels of the quilt her grandmother made her. The comfort of her home away form home for those nights she felt sad and wanted to be home. The granddaughter could easily drown her fears and tears into this quilt and be reminded of the strength and the bond she has with her Grandmother. “Heartsick” was an powerful word to use to understand how the granddaughter must have felt on those miserable days. But, to tie it in to the quilt like she did was like she quilted the words together to show how and what it meant to be alone and struggled and how the granddaughter coped with her emotions. I believe that the word loose, this word was placed all the way at the end of the poem. I feel like this word speaks loudly throughout this poem significance. This poem is about the granddaughter being blown “loose” by the natural forces that cary us. In this case she is blowing “loose” of her home and her centric ideas. To explore and be “loose” in the world to experience it through her eyes to develop her own point of view by simply enacting her own beliefs and adopting others. I felt compelled to react to the word, “slant”. “Slant”, has a great meaning in this poem for it is used in the beginning of the poem. Slant can mean a
The poem’s structure as a sonnet allows the speaker’s feelings of distrust and heartache to gradually manifest themselves as the poem’s plot progresses. Each quatrain develops and intensifies the speaker’s misery, giving the reader a deeper insight into his convoluted emotions. In the first quatrain, the speaker advises his former partner to not be surprised when she “see[s] him holding [his] louring head so low” (2). His refusal to look at her not only highlights his unhappiness but also establishes the gloomy tone of the poem. The speaker then uses the second and third quatrains to justify his remoteness; he explains how he feels betrayed by her and reveals how his distrust has led him
In Theodore Roethke's poem, "Dolor", He perfectly describes the feeling of despair and sadness. He fully captures the tremendous grief that comes with having the same everyday routine in life. He does so in a rather exquisite way, by using an office setting as his canvas, he paints the reader a picture of the despair, grief, and sadness that comes with the every day office life. He truly paints the picture of "Dolor".
Toward the beginning of her entries, her relationship with John appeared civil, if not loving: in one of her entries, she wrote “Dear John! He loves me very dearly, and hates to have me sick” (DiYanni 546), and several lines later, described how “… dear John gathered me up in his arms, and just carried me upstairs and laid me on the bed, and sat by me and read till it tired my head. He said I was his darling and his comfort and all he had, and that I must take care of myself for his sake” (DiYanni 547). Jane seemed to believe that he truly loved her and wanted her to feel better. Her conversations with Jennie, John’s sister and the housekeeper, were initially also pleasant, and Jane described her as “a dear girl… and so careful of me!” (DiYanni 545) The “woman in the wallpaper” did not yet exist. However, Jane separated herself from both of them: John was away for much of the day, “and even some nights when his cases are serious” (DiYanni 545). Even when he was home, he was often asleep, leaving his wife to spend her nights with the wallpaper and the woman running around within it (DiYanni 548). Toward the end, Jane even mentioned that she was thankful that John would not be returning until the next morning, so she would be able to finally do something about letting the woman in the wallpaper out. Jane also began to
To start off the analysis, the setting of the entire poem is significant. Though the poem takes place in a house, the atmosphere the house is set in is also important. The month is September which is a month of fall which can be seen as a symbol for decline. It definitely insinuates that the poem is leading towards death. Line 1 has “September rain falls on the house” which gives the feeling of a dark and cold night with a storm on top of that. To further develop that, Bishop gives us the failing light in line 2 to also give us an idea of the grandmother’s struggle. Bishop uses the cyclical theme of changing seasons to show the unending nature of what is transpiring within the
In 1908, Theodore Huebner Roethke was born in Saginaw, Michigan. There he was raised by his mother and father, who owned a greenhouse with their uncle. As a child, he spent much time in the greenhouse observing the nature, which greatly influenced his future works. Roethke attended Arthur Hill High School and later graduated magna cum laude from the University of Michigan in 1929. Afterword he took a few graduate classes at Michigan and Harvard, but was unhappy and left (Kalaidjian).
Jane's childhood trauma results as a product of her times at Gateshed and Lowood. There were a series of irreversible problems that Jane had to deal with. She was born an orphan into a house devoid of love or respect for her. It is not overly emotionally healthy to live with the "ostracism by the Reed family and the unrelenting anxiety over the chidings of the servants, the violence of John Reed, and the punishments and berating of Mrs. Reed." (Ashe 10) Evidently, Jane had this lifestyle since she was little. This can be inferred from Mrs. Reeds loving statement "I hated it the first time I set my eyes on it-a sickly, whining, pining thing" (7)
There are clues throughout the poem that express the man’s past experiences, leading him to have a hostile tone. The speaker represents his past as “parched years” that he has lived through (7-8) and represents his daughter’s potential future as
Through the poem's imagery, it seems as if the speaker is purposefully painting an ambiguous picture of himself, but is also successful in slowly perfecting it by the end of the poem. Likewise, he also applies this idea towards the rhyme scheme, catching the reader off guard once again. The first two lines, “My lizard, my lively writher / may your limbs never wither,” is a slant rhyme, as well as the next two lines that follow. Recognizing the rhyme scheme of these four lines forces the reader to question the obvious: Why would a poet deliberately play with the rhyme scheme if he is only trying to express his true, sincere feelings for someone? One could argue that Roethke does this to compliment his playful imagery at the beginning of the poem, both of which keep his reader attentive and focused. Moreover, building this sense of obscurity also gives the poem a deeper meaning and adds a new twist to what otherwise would have been an ordinary love poem.
“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
“Ink smeared like bird prints in snow” is the first simile that appears in the poem and serves multiple purposes. The most obvious one is the creation of imagery, where it compares the black words the persona writes on paper to the bird’s foot prints that are left behind when a bird walks on snow. The imagery alludes that the persona will leave a “footprint” in the form of a note that people can use to trace her path but she will never be there anymore. From line thirty-six to forty, the poet creates another imagery of a sparrow (a tiny and a delicate bird) flying in windy snowing weather. The sparrow is dizzied and sullied by the violent wind; it encounters a lot of difficulties and fear. In this imagery, the persona compares herself with the delicate bird. She compares the challenges that the sparrow goes through to the suffering she encounters relating to her parents.
The children are unnoticed by others and the mother is the only one that is protecting them. This poem shows the hard times that the mother must face because her children have died. However the mother is coping with them while still protecting her children after they have died, This is the mother's way of coping because she is not yet ready to let go of her children and still wants to care for them. This poem shows this through nature by portraying the mother as a bird who is protecting her nest. Also the poem uses nature by describing the harsh times as a winter wind that has caused harm to the mother and her children.
The word choice here reflects Jane's situation - she is like the ground, 'petrified' under the influence of her aunt, whose behaviour is mirrored in the term "hard frost" because of the icy discipline she bestows. Mrs Reed's attitude towards Jane highlights one of the main themes of the novel, social class. Jane's aunt sees Jane as inferior as she had humble beginnings: she is "less than a servant". Jane is glad to be leaving her cruel aunt and of having the chance of going to school.
In the next four lines of the poem, the speaker talks about how he feels as he imagines his childhood. Even though he is in front of this woman who is singing and playing music, “in spite of” himself, his present state, this “insidious mastery of song betrays” the speaker back “till” he “weeps” to go back to his childhood. The guileful dominance of the song the woman is singing beguiles him to think about his past experience. His heart “weeps to belong to the old Sunday evenings at home.” He really misses the time when he was little, and he used to hear his mother playing piano every Sunday evening. He wants to go back to his childhood and belong to that time again.