Relationships between family members, as well as childhood memories, have always served as one of the most popular subjects of many literary works. Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” and Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” are poems written in the middle of the 20th century, with about 20 years of difference in their publication. In both poems, the father is the main character, but if Roethke chose a humorous and funny tone for his writing, the emotions of Plath are characterized by anger and hatred, cherished by a child. Each poem has a different story and expresses various feelings, but they all are united by the same central themes: complicated relationships between a child and a father and reminiscences of one’s young age. Despite containing some sentimental aspects, the chosen poems are pervaded by concealed fear, subjugation, twisted obsession, and sinister emotions. In this paper, attention will be paid to the analysis of complex family relationships, stemmed through childhood experiences and both positive and negative memories that are properly introduced by Plath and Roethke in their poems.
Plath’s “Daddy” and Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” are the two pieces that have made rather a controversial impression on me. In these poems, authors spoke of bright memories of childhood, but it is impossible to characterize them as purely happy and sentimental. As soon as I read the first lines, I was able to formulate my own opinion about the story and the relationships that had to be developed. However, despite my intention to focus on every detail, it was hard to learn the essence of Plath’s and Roethke’s messages without some external help. Therefore, the decision to surf the web and find what other people think about the chosen poems was made.
Plath’s poem depicts a remarkable severity of her silence up until when she was ten, marked with a twisted obsession with her father’s dominance. My emotional response to this literary piece is subjugation or penal servitude. The author evidently could never escape her father’s dominance, which is a brilliant example of how assertive and controlling a parent can be. Plath uses a variety of allusions to create a mental picture of her father, the most powerful ones being connected with the Nazi regime. In fact, due to these allusions, Plath even compares herself to a Jew, drawing a parallel between her relationship with her father and that between Germans and Jews during World War II. Firstly, Plath notes, “I began to talk like a Jew,” and then, she started thinking that she might “well be a Jew” (34-35). Instances of assonance make the idea of the girl as a victim more pronounced since Plath uses many rhymes to the word “Jew”: “blue” (12), “you” (24), “true” (37), and “gobbledygoo” (42). Such a comparison between childhood memories and the Nazi’s experience underlines the depth of her trauma and hatred of her father.
As for me, Plath’s “Daddy” tells a story of a father’s encasement of a child that never eluded her, not even after his death. To check the correctness of my thoughts and understanding of the poem, I addressed Google as the source of multiple ideas and approaches about everything. I found resonance with my thoughts on an academic website when experts underline the idea of the “father’s looming figure”, either physically or emotionally (“Sylvia Plath: Poems Summary”). The father is described as “authoritative,” and the author’s style is called “a sort of nursery rhyme” (“Sylvia Plath: Poems Summary”). I agree with the points and some of the vilified expressions introduced in the web article like “a childish figure,” “sinister feel,” and the necessity to connect history and myths. Consulting this source helped me to comprehend the poem’s essence a lot better and to confirm my original beliefs about “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath.
Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” was quite a different sort for me. I originally thought the poem was in fact about lovers, reading it through with a keen abstractive eye. The author had pointed out some conditions, situations and confirmed it with clear literary words that impressed upon my thoughts that the poem had to be about lovers. For example, in the first stanza, Roethke described the situation with “The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy” (1-2). I thought about close relationships between two people who, perhaps, kissed each other, and such an idea caused my admiration. In addition, the author explains “But I hung on like death: such waltzing was not easy” (3-4). Again, I accepted the act of waltzing as the dance of lovers, full of passion, true emotions, and power.
Addressing Google for help was my attempt to revise all thoughts about Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz”. I wanted to find a site where people share their ideas about the poem, following their personal assumptions and knowledge. In Study Guide, the poem was explained as the story about father-son relationships, and a deep recount of abuse tale author’s relationship with his father seems quite close and even worth admiration. According to Roethke, the boy “hung on like death” (3), his father’s hand “held” his “wrist” (9), and by the end of the evening, the boy was still “clinging” to the father’s shirt (16). On the other hand, however, the so-called dance in which the two characters were so involved cannot be considered entirely peaceful, bearing some ominous atmosphere. The author remembers the persistent smell of whiskey from his father’s drunkenness, the sound of pans falling “from the kitchen shelf’ (Roethke 6), and the way his “ear scraped a buckle” every time his father missed a step (12). My perfect picture of lovers’ relationships was broken into pieces, and I began to search for another interpretation of the story.
The use of the Internet for the interpretation of the poem was a correct decision for me. Study Guide enriched my understanding of Roethke’s intentions and an overall idea of the story. Specifically, I was able to learn that Roethke’s father died when the boy was only fifteen and that they had “a conflicted relationship” (“Study Guide’). Attention to these details and to the history of the poet helped me understand the premise of the relationship between a son and a father, which now I personally find a little unhealthy or even cruel.
In general, the chosen poems are dedicated to childhood, either with a greater emphasis on positive emotions or with stress on negative issues. In my opinion, both Plath’s “Daddy” and Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” bear a sentimental air, although the tone of subjugation, concealed fear, sinister emotions, and twisted obsession cannot be ignored. The use of Internet resources can give quantifiable guidance to understand poems from a variety of perspectives better, even when you have your own well-formed opinion of it. Diversity of meanings, contrasting and conflicting ideas expressed by these authors sometimes provoke a web of thoughts for, and by different readers. The virtuous use of expressive means and stylistic means allows poets to manifest their works’ essence, uniquely and sometimes with overgrazing details. Overall, the two poems are unique examples of brilliant technique and deep sense, which can be unveiled through thorough analysis.
Works Cited
Plath, Sylvia. “Daddy.” Poetry Foundation, 1960.
Roethke, Theodore. “My Papa’s Waltz.” Poetry Foundation, 1942.
“Study Guide: “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke.” Shmoop, n.d.
“Sylvia Plath: Poems Summary and Analysis of “Daddy”.” GradeSaver, n.d.