Theodore Roethke's Elegy For Jane

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.

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)

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

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

The use of connotative words in this piece is the foundation of this poem and it provides an idea of what this poem is going to be about. In the first stanza he describes the woman as “lovely in her bones,” showing that her beauty is more than skin deep comparing her virtues to a goddess of “only gods should speak.” In the second stanza, the reader can see and feel the love between the two people. The woman taught him how to "Turn, and Counter-turn, and Stand," showing that she was the teacher in the relationship and taught him things he thought he never needed to know. The speaker shows how when they are together, she was “the sickle” and he was “the rake” showing that this woman taught him what love is.

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

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

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

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 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

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.

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 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.

“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

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.