The poem “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke demonstrates how alcoholic parents negatively affect their children’s childhood memories. The past tense verbs in the line “a small boy” make it clear to the reader that the speaker is now grown and is reflecting on a memory. These memories described in this poem are clearly unpleasant because Theodore states “My mother’s countenance Could not unfrown itself”. This shows how the fathers drinking not only caused problems for him but disrupted the whole family. It is made clear in the line “you beat time on my head” that emotionally the speaker’s memories of childhood were devastating due to his father’s drinking. Every minute he had to tolerate it was torture. Lastly the speaker’s memories became obviously negative once we read line 11 “At every step you missed My right ear scraped a buckle”. Not only did the speaker’s alcoholic father create bad memories by upsetting his mother but it hurt him emotionally and physically.
Looks good, Cassidy.
ReplyDeleteI have a few minor critiques. FIrst, you should refer to a poet by his last name, not his first. "Roethke", not "Theodore". Second, you don't really need to have quotations in an introductory paragraph; save that for the body of your essay. In you intro you want to suggest what your argument is going to be, but not actually make it yet.