​Draft Analytical Essay about Poetry, writing homework help

User Generated

SbheEpvpvf

Description

Theodore Roethke: MY PAPA’S WALTZ

Theodore Roethke

1948

The whiskey on your breath

Could make a small boy dizzy;

But I hung on like death:

Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans 5

Slid from the kitchen shelf;

My mother’s countenance

Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist

Was battered on one knuckle; 10

At every step you missed

My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head

With a palm caked hard by dirt,

Then waltzed me off to bed 15

Still clinging to your shirt.


Draft Analytical Essay about Poetry

The essay assignment for this week is to compose a paper of at least 750 words in which you offer your interpretation of a key theme in one of the assigned poems. You may choose any poem from the reading list except for “The Chimney Sweeper.” If you wish, you may base your paper on the analysis you began in this week’s discussion question. If you get “stuck,” read your chosen poem again with a pen in hand so you can make notes. Do not hesitate to share your initial ideas with your classmates and the instructor.

  • You should open your essay with an introductory paragraph that engages the reader and presents your poem and author. End your introduction with a thesis statement that interprets one literary element of the poem (such as theme, imagery, symbolism, or characterization).
  • Each paragraph following the introduction should present specific aspects of the poem that help to illustrate and support your thesis. Make sure to quote and analyze specific lines that support your argument.
  • Include a concluding paragraph at the end that summarizes the main points of the paper and explains the significance of the thesis.

User generated content is uploaded by users for the purposes of learning and should be used following Studypool's honor code & terms of service.

Explanation & Answer

Here you go pal, kindly let me know when you have further questions. Thank you.

Surname1

Themes in Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz”
Name:
Institution:
Instructor:
Course:
Date:

The poet, Theodore Roethke was brought up in Saginaw, Michigan. The surrounding
within which he was brought up considerable shaped his work later in life as a poet. Theodore
Roethke had an unfavorable interaction with his father, who was a great greenhouse farmer. On
the contrary, the woods elsewhere occupied Theodore with spectacles of the natural universe.
Unfortunately, Theodore’s father succumbed to a cancer disease when was only 15 years old.
The death of his father at that tender age significantly affected Theodore. Because of this, most
of Theodore’s work has usually narrated his childhood life, and this is significantly clear in his
poem, “My Papa’s Waltz.” Furthermore, Roethke wrote in the background of a lost child despite
many years after his parent’s demise. Hence, an analysis of Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s
Waltz,” shows how the themes highlighted in the poem clearly depicts a damaging representation
that is painted by the son of an abusive father.

Surname2

The speaker in the poem “My Papa’s Waltz” is a small teenager who has father earlier in
his life. This is illustrated in the first stanza of the poem. “The whiskey on your breath, / could
make a small boy dizzy” (1-2). The first and the second lines evidently demonstrate that the
speaker was a young boy, in his teenage years when his dad passed away. Furthermore, the two
first lines equally invoke an emotion of empathy for the reader. The speaker has lost his only
source of hope and hero and compelled to undertake the working aspect of grownups, a situation
that made the boy disheartened and ill for a considerable portion of his early years. Nevertheless,
the boy did not despair despite the difficulties, and clearly illustrates this in the third line as he
states, “But I hung on like death” (3). Additionally, in this perspective, the speaker establishes
the impression of a simile by comparing how he was determined even in the wake of death.
Moreover, the poem provides the reader with various images that align to establish an
impression of how the speaker and his father interacted or related. Although the speaker
experienced a disputed association with his dad, he still loved him. The speaker narrates in the
poem that “then w...


Anonymous
Goes above and beyond expectations!

Studypool
4.7
Trustpilot
4.5
Sitejabber
4.4

Related Tags