Odatte Joseph
Mary Galvin
ENC1102/ M-W
Compare contrast
1/31/07
Comparing two wonderful fathers
Families are possibly the most important aspect in any society .Mother or the father sometimes in their own little world forgetting if they have children who look up to them. Children watch and record every move that their parents make with them, and in front of them. But most of the time parents seem not to recognize that. However, these two poems “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, and “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden can be compared and contrasted from their structure, images, and tones.
First stanza in “My papa’s Waltz” presents a clear picture of a young man’s father, that explain a drinking father who hung on life through thin and think in line (1-4) “The whiskey on your breath” the “whiskey” demonstrates a olfactory image and “but I hung on like death” the second Stanza in line (5-6) “We romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf” show the boy was having fun with his father.
The poem “My Papa’s waltz”, by Theodore Roethke shows a regular structure with a perfect rhyme pattern: breath, death, dizzy, easy. It has a set form that consists of four stanzas and employs strict stanza structure. “My Papa’s waltz” has tactile imagery in line (11-13) “At every Step you missed/ My right ear scraped a buckle/You beat time on my head.” That makes us a reader more sensitive and creates vivid details with sense of sight “My mother’s countenance” line 7.
In Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden presents free verses, end rhyme. Enjambment in lines shows no regular pattern, no exact pattern and no visual structure of stanzas. The first stanza has five lines and the second has four. The poem does not seem to rhyme. First stanza explain hard working father who wake up early everyday and even on Sunday morning like the other days becomes a routine for him. His father gets up early and dresses up in the cold darkness, sounds painfully cold; his “cracked hand” means hard working man. In “Blazing” the fire that the father creates, “Breaking” sounds of wood and “chronic anger” that rules the house the image of that man up early in the morning. “Banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him” (line 5) this image is very touching because his boy who sound like a teenager didn’t show appreciation.
In “Those Winter Sundays” poem, the speaker present concrete images the narrator is thinking about coldness. He does not understand the meaning of his father’s action. “My Papa’s Waltz” and “Those Winter Sundays” are two somewhat similar poems about respected fathers. They talked about hard working fathers. The father is the man that brings food to the table and spends time with them. In these two poems Roethke and Hayden take an admiring look back at the action of their fathers. Both parents were not perfect they show different form of love and clear picture of their fathers. The structures of the poems show for a better understanding, using rhyme and meter and other form of structure.
2007-01-31
02:40:04
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2 answers
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asked by
Odatte J
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Family & Relationships
➔ Family