Theodore Roethke 1948

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My Papas Waltz

• Theodore Roethke (1948)
• Presented by Becky Sarah

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Theodore Roethke

• May 25, 1908- August 1,1963
• University of Michigan (magna cum laude), Harvard
  Graduate School
• Diagnosed with manic depression
• Wrote 61 poems

Theodore Roethke
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Summary/Meaning

• A drunken father
• A disapproving mother
• A son clinging to his father
• Dancing in the kitchen-knocking over pots and
  pans
• Reference to Roethkes past

Liquor Bottle
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Personal Response

• Puts interesting image in your head
• Tough love
• Forceful father-son is scared

Love Beat Me Up
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Theme

• Memory
• author is expressing feelings as child through
  speaker of this poem
• We need independence because when we lose the
  people who lead us we become lost in life.

• Order and disorder
• Irony-father creates order/also forced disorder
  (he was drunk)
• Those who are supposed to be stable figures in
  life are sometimes irresponsible.

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Speaker

• Son of instable father? The whiskey on your
  breath could make a small boy dizzy
• Son needing guidance? Waltzed me off to bed
  still clinging to your shirt

Confused Boy
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Tone

• At surface (comical)
• Deeper meaning/symbols (depressing)
• Informal / Conversational

Inappropriate Laughter
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Structure and Sound Patterns

• 4 quatrains
• Iambic trimeteriambic ballad meter
• Sounds like waltz (due to rhyme scheme)
• Rhyme scheme (ABAB)
• Alliteration --the hand that held and waltzing
  was not easy

Music Staff
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Figurative Language

• Personification --like death
• Personification --My mothers countenance could
  not unfrown itself
• Hyperbole --make a small boy dizzy

Frown
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Images

• The whiskey on your breath
• Romped until the pans slid from the kitchen
  shelf
• The hand that held my wrist was battered on one
  knuckle
• My right ear scraped a buckle
• Palm caked hard by dirt

Pan
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Symbols

• make a small boy dizzy
• not easy
• Battered
• dirt
• clinging

Swirl
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Authors Personal Connection

• His Own father-high expectations ?guilt when
  failed
• Son cannot keep up with father
• Father cannot lead his son
• Fathers death ?insecure ?alcohol

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Works Cited

• Dompke, Dave, Johnson, Ryan, York, Nathan,
  Killion, Stephen. A Little Something About
  Theodore Roethke. Feb. 23 2004 http//www.eiu.edu/
  eng1002/authors/roethke/bio.html
• Frown. Yahoo. 19 Feb. 2004. http//carrottop.blo
  gspot.com/
• Imogene Cunningham. Theodore Roethke. Galenet
  Research Database. 19 Feb. 2004.
  http//galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/SRC.
• Inappropriate Laughter. Yahoo. 19 Feb. 2004.
  http//cford.lucasvalley.net/drawings.html
• Liquor Bottle. Yahoo. 19 Feb. 2004.
  http//cita.chattanooga.org/chml2.jpg

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Works Cited (Continued)

• Love Beat Me Up. Yahoo. Feb. 23 2004.
  http//www.turtleduck.org/spring03.html
• My Papas Waltz. Poetry for Students. Eds.
  Marie Napierkowski and Mary Ruby. Vol. 3.
  Detroit Gale 1997. 190-201
• Pan. Yahoo. 19 Feb. 2004. .http//www.eslkidstu
  ff.com/kitchen_objects.html
• Swirl. Yahoo. 19 Feb. 2004. http//conal.net/pan
  /Gallery/default.htm
• Thedore (Huebner) Roethke. DISCovering
  Authors. Online Edition. Gale, 2003. Reproduced
  in Student Resource Center. Detroit Gale, 2004