The Father could be mistaken as a drunk or abusive, Due to lines such as “ The Whiskey on your breath/ Could make a small boy dizzy.” (1-2) But is later affirmed to be the opposite with the young boy telling us “I hung on like death.” (3) Allowing us to know he doesn’t in fact want to let go. This is not in fear for his life which the word “death implies” but it is caused by the young boy wanting to continue and have fun with his father. As each stanza progresses we can further see the unconditional love between Father and Son. The young boy’s feelings and love for his father can be better illustrated by Theodore Roethke’s imagery, when we read more in depth; Roethke shows us a young boy having a joyous time wile trying to avoid being put to bed in My Papa’s Waltz. We can begin to better understand this relationship by digging deeper into the poem itself and examining each stanza, line and even word.
“My Papa’s Waltz” – Theodore Roethke Poems can have many different meanings and interpretations. This poem, about a father and a son, is no different. When first reading this poem, many people’s initial thoughts would be negative because it can be interpreted as an abusive relationship. With a second look though, this is not the case at all. “My Papa’s Waltz” is an endearing poem about a young boy that longs for the undivided attention of his working father.
I believe this poem is reflective of Roethke’s difficult childhood. It gives the reader an introspective look at the father through the voice of the young son. “My Papa’s Waltz”, talks about how the person of the poem struggled growing up to the tune of a life he had to live with parents that are either unhappy or abusive. In the poem, the speaker is reflecting on a childhood experience involving his father. A poem with short or few stanzas leaves “a lot of white space” on the page, Roethke wrote, but that forces “those lines to stand up by themselves” (Kizer 6).
The 'small boy'(Booth line 2) is talking directly to his father. This, in the positive readers eyes, evokes a feeling of intimacy between the two characters. In the mean time, the fathers breath making the boy dizzy gives ammo to the readers who believe the poem is about domestic abuse. For them, this line indicates that the father was not drinking socially, but drinking oppressively to the point of abusing the whiskey. The readers that see no abuse in the poem retaliate that the boy becoming dizzy is a realistic description of the two figures being close physically, and dancing around in circles as they attempt to
Chris had many problems growing up he thrived off of his peers laughter and enjoyment but his biggest priority was making his dad proud which caused him so much grief and psychological problems through his life. Christopher Crosby Farley Born February 15th 1964 was the middle child of 6. Chris’s siblings as well as Chris would always fight for their father’s acceptance whether it was in academics or athletics. Since Chris was the middle child he was never the favorite growing up, Chris always looked for attention every day on the bus he would sing specific songs based off of his comedic attitude that day. All Chris cared about was making people laugh that was his life’s motive.
The short story “The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst, is about a boy named Doodle who was born with a weak heart so every one thinks he is going to die, but he survives. When Doodle was almost 5 he could only crawl so Brother had to carry him around in a go-cart. Brother was tired of pulling Doodle around so he tries to teach him how to walk. When Doodle finally started walking Brother was very happy that he got doodle to walk, but then he realized even though he did a nice thing it was only because he didn’t want to be embarrassed by his brother. That is when Brother realizes pride is a seed that bears two vines life and death.
When he hears a little boy singing a lighthearted love song about coming through the rye, he sees it as his queue to save the people, wanting to be their ‘catcher’. The reason Holden wants to be the ‘catcher’ of the children, and save them, is because that is the one thing that he couldn’t do for his brother. Holden still feels horrible about the things that he knows he could have done but didn’t, for Allie. He continuously talks to the imaginary Allie, hoping to gain his forgiveness. What I did, I started talking, sort of out loud, to Allie.
He talks about when his brother was first born in the beginning of the story and how he was happy that he was getting someone to hang out with. Once he found out that his brother was undeveloped he says a lot of things that I think a healthy person should say, such as planning on smothering his brother with a pillow. I consider that the narrator did not sound like an average child, his personality might have been that way since the birth of his brother, but we do not get to read a lot about his life and feelings before his brother was born. I think the relationship between the narrator and his brother is very complex, and cannot be described easily. It was confusing to tell what he narrators true feelings were throughout the story, but I believed that he loved his brother.
Brother brings Subjectivity to the story because he is with Doodle in the most important times of Doodles life. For example, when Doodle was born, Brother plots that he is going to kill Doodle because he does not think that Doodle will live for long and Doodle was not completely there so he was going to smoother Doodle with his pillow. This shows that this is a child narrator by the way he speaks saying
The opening metaphor sets the tone for the relationship between the two brothers: ""Saddled"" suggests the negative feelings the speaker has for his brother, as if he is an inconvenience, restricting the freedom of the speaker. The feelings of the characters in the poem are revealed through the choice of verbs. In the first stanza the speaker and his friend ""ambled"", ""talking"" as they went, whereas the younger brother ""skipped"" and was ""spouting six-year-old views"". The enthusiastic spirit of the younger brother reflects his pride and excitement at being with the older brother he clearly worships. This continues in the second stanza: ""sighed"" and ""stroll"" contrast with ""windmilled"", a metaphor full of the energy.