Saying that the boy hung on "like" death is an example of a simile. Line 4 Such waltzing was not easy. This line wraps up the first stanza. In what could be a happy moment, father and son dancing, we see that it's kind of tricky for the son to hold on to his drunken father. Also, if the waltz of this poem is a metaphor for their father-son relationship, this could show that it's not easy to dance between loving and fearing his father's power Lines 5-6 We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf; This is not a quiet, stately waltz, but a romp!
In the two short stories it seems as if the sons’ relationships with their father were quite different, but they also had their similarities because both of them cared for their son. In the story “Powder” the father took good care of his son for he continually tried to give his son what he thought was best. He fought for the privilege to see his son after he already snuck him into a jazz club to see Thelonious Monk (Wolff 1). He was a good dad, for as his son says “He wouldn’t give up. He promised, hand on heart, to take good care of me and have me home for dinner on Christmas Eve” (Wolff 1).
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.
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.
The 'small boy'(Booth line 2) is talking directly to his father. This, in the positive readers eyes, evokes a feeling of intimacy between the two characters. In the mean time, the fathers breath making the boy dizzy gives ammo to the readers who believe the poem is about domestic abuse. For them, this line indicates that the father was not drinking socially, but drinking oppressively to the point of abusing the whiskey. The readers that see no abuse in the poem retaliate that the boy becoming dizzy is a realistic description of the two figures being close physically, and dancing around in circles as they attempt to
The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin is about a boy who never really had much; he was born into rags and lived in rags his entire life until he was taken in by the Widow Douglas, who gave him clothes and tried to educate him. Huck did end up reading and continued school for a while, even if he only continued school just to spite his father. Huck hated and feared his father, seeing how Pap was unpredictable and was the town drunk. Lily’s father in the Secret Life of Bees also struck fear in his child. You could tell Lily was afraid of her father, seeing how she hesitated to tell him about events such as her birthday.
Firstly the ghost took Scrooge back to his boarding school that he attended as a boy. ‘The school is not quite deserted,’ said the Ghost. ‘A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.’ Scrooge saw his former self, a lonely boy reading in a deserted school. There was a connection through the way Scrooge treats people and his past self, Scrooge then wishing he had given the boy singing a Christmas carol to him a gift last night. Secondly the ghost had shown Scrooge as a young man being visited by his younger sister Fan who told Scrooge it’s okay, he can be home again, and he’ll have a family, and love and warmth.
It was Christmas Eve. Hearing his clerk wish his nephew a merry Christmas Scrooge said “my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas”. Dickens is trying to express how Scrooge could not see what all the fuss was about; his clerk was paid very badly and even though he did not have much was willing to spend money on one day. Also how Cratchit was looking forward to spending time with his family. Dickens also writes how Scrooge treated his Nephew Fred, badly, his nephew and only living relative is a very cheerful man who loves Christmas.
In Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz”, this is exactly the case. A boy and his father share a very loving memory of dancing a drunken waltz. The boy looks past the fact that his father is drunk because he loves him very much. The imagery that Roethke uses lets the reader transport to the kitchen where the boy and his father are dancing. Roethke’s work plants very vivid images in his reader’s mind that paint a very clear image of the boy and his drunken father.
As the dance proceeds the lines “The hand that held my wrist, Was battered on one knuckle” (9-10), could lead one to believe this was in an abusive manner, as in he had injured his hand on the little boy. Secondly you can look at the poem as a positive memory. “We romped until the pans, Slid from the kitchen shelf” (5-6). This can simply be viewed as a little boy fondly remembering a father coming home from a hard day of work and still having time to play before bed. Also these words aren’t harsh but lighthearted and energetic.