My Papa’s Waltz Summary Lines 1-2 The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; Judging by the title, the person addressed in these lines is the small boy's father, and the small boy is our speaker. The father has been drinking whiskey, and not just a little. He's so drunk that even the smell of his breath could make a small boy, like his son, feel a bit woozy. These lines show that the poem will address the father in the second person, referring to him as "you." But we don't think he's actually there with the boy because, after all, we hear nothing back from the man.
A Waltz to Remember In many different poems throughout time various readers have been coming up with different meanings. One poem that shows that is a great example of just that is “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke. By simply reading the poem through some of the language Roethke uses could lead the reader to believe that the poem is about abuse. “The whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy” (1-2). But though alcohol can cause one to be angry and abusive, it is also know to make you dance and sing.
Now this is the side of the story that I see, and the theme for this said would be the importance of family. This could be the theme for this subject because in the poem the boy seems to truly enjoy the horse play with his father, as it says in the poem “Then waltzed me off to bed / Still clinging to your shirt” (15-16), which shows he wants to keep playing and not go to bed. The other theme/subject is a little darker, where it seems that a drunken father comes home late one night to beat on his son. The theme for this subject is simple, “Abuse”, as this shows a young boy being beat. An example of this in the poem is when it says, “The hand that held my wrist / Was battered on one knuckle” (9-10), which shows the boy is being beat.
In Charlie’s conditions, even a rabbit stew or a warm water bath was to be looked forward to on a Saturday night and warmth was from the ‘…pieces of fallen bark’ which he gathers from Mr Peacock. The protagonist was in an unfortunate and dreary state at the start of the novel. The idea of Runner being referred to as a sulky novel is also highlighted by the minor characters that were mentioned. Daisy Maloney, ‘…having lost her husband in the war…’ had to be a prostitute for a living. She must earn money to raise her kids, and with her attractive looks, ‘…she was a popular choice for men ’.
Deanna Joo Ms. Morris Period 5 AP Language and Composition 10 September 2009 Frank’s Emotions and Eugene’s Coffin Frank McCourt has a very unique style of writing; improper and hard to understand yet it captures his perspective when he explains what is happening throughout the book. In this particular part of the chapter, Frank sees his father drinking with another man at the pub. When he sees his father’s pint resting on Eugene’s coffin, Frank becomes upset: “…I want to cry when I see the blank pints on top of it [the coffin]”. This is the first time one should recognize Frank expressing emotion towards Malachy’s drinking. The visual Frank paints the reader of the two pitch black
Essay 1 Sonny’s Blues setting contributes to the story’s main theme by the idea behind of the love of two brothers extends beyond the relationship between both brothers but also the community as a whole. Harlem is affected greatly by drugs, poverty, and frustration, but members of the community come together to watch over and protect one another to fall into a dangerous pit. In the story the adults spend their Saturday afternoons sharing stories, providing a sense of warmth and protection to the children around them. The narrator, although initially angered by one of Sonny’s old friends, in the end recognizes his connection to the man by showing how he reminds him of Sonny and offers him money. Even Sonny, for all his problems he has with drugs, helps the people around him endure and survive by channeling their frustrated desires into his music The drugs on the streets of Harlem have affected both the narrator and Sonny very deeply.
It was like night and day as weekdays turned into weekends and father figures turning me into an agitated and frusterated kid. He would pour his rum mixed with cubes of ice as he poured his orange juice to sweeten the bitterness. Sanders uses a reference of Theodore Roethke's lines of his father saying "The Whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death" quoted in Sanders essay placed me back into my childhood as his slurred words whipped through my nose and fueled my anger. He saw it in my face every time as he also became agitated and complaining about hes first thoughts about life
I will explain my views by referring to a range of evidence. This will include some of his performances and poems such as “white comedy“, “touch” and responsible and interviews written about him. I will particularly consider his childhood, performance style, lifestyle, achievements and use of word lyrics. Firstly I would like to tell you about Benjamin Zephaniahs childhood because in the interview by the Observer it tells us that he had an extraordinary childhood due to him being the eldest of eight children and how he runaway with his mother because his father was a bad man and how he went to prison and got expelled from school due to stealing and theft. He says “when my father was turning on my mother, he was also turning on me because I would stick up for my mother while the rest of my brother and sisters would be hiding in the cupboards.” the point I am trying to make here is that after such a harsh and miserable childhood he has still made an amazing and successful career and life.
Brittney Lindsey Professor Howard English 102 29 Mar 2013 Journal 1 In The poem “My Papa Waltz”, the relationship between the speaker and his father is an abnormal relationship, his father is engaging his child in his drunken activities .Before the child drifts of to sleep, he gets the opportunity to dance with his father .The Father is so drunk that the alcohol on his breath second handily intoxicates his son and makes him dizzy along with the fast paced dancing. Even though this dancing is an annoyance to his mother, and the child is well aware of this. The son continues to hold on to his drunken father in comfort no matter what the circumstances are. I feel like the son is gaining comfort from his father because, he may not receive any attention at all from his father when he is sober and this is his only opportunity to bond with his father even though he is intoxicated with alcohol. In “The Secretary’s Chant” The speaker turns herself into a machine in comparison to the objects that surround her in her everyday scene as a secretary.
Though born into a privileged community, his childhood was tragically abrupt with the death of his father in the winter of 1944, thrusting a nine-year-old boy into the psychological responsibilities of, “the chair at the head of the table.” This central event of his youth bequeathed a rationale for his art, as he states that, “deprivation is the mother of poetry.” Raised a Jew, Cohen grew up in the presence of, or lack-there-of, G-D, and this struggle influenced his creativity through to his more recent interest in the study of Buddhism. Trumping, though, his religious, personal achievements, is his praised career