Poetry Essay

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The use of Tone, Figures of speech, and Meanings to show how one feels towards their father in "Daddy" and "My Papa's Waltz"

The poem "Daddy" written by Sylvia Plath and "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke, are both poems about a child's feelings towards their father. In "Daddy" the author takes a mean and hatred approach to talk about her feelings for her late father. Plath tells about her whole life hating her father. As where Roethke talks about one incident with her father. In "My Papa's Waltz" Roethke talks of his father in a calmer, but also fearful and loving. Although these two poems are different in tone and in language, they are both still expressing the discomfort with their fathers.

"Daddy" is written in a very angry, loud and pissed off tone. You can see this sense of loudness in her tone as Elaine Connell says she "used writing as an outlet to calm herself down, and pour her emotions into her writing". It is easy to assume that the poem is about a child and her father's relationship. My first reaction to the title of this poem was an image of a girl and her father; to her he was daddy, and her hero, but after reading the poem, it is clear this is not a healthy or loving relationship. Plath us

"Daddy" is a very mean poem, and you can picture this now by seeing the imagery in this poem, and the figures of speech. His young daughter was on a search to find her loving father she thought, but was let down at he end of her search. He was an evil man full of hatred, and she was just a young daughter happy and full of life. When she found her father her life was torn in two, and was scared forever. In the end she realizes she doesn't want him. She says "Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through. (80).

Although Plath's poem differs from Roenthke's in obscene language, but the two poems share hate for their fathers. Plath's is a more mental abuse while Roenthke's is leaning more toward physical abuse. These two poems are very good examples of great

es concrete words like devil, swastika, tank, war machines, and tank to describe her hate for her father. She explains how she felt like her father treated her like a Jew in a Concentration Camp. She doesn't really say straightforward if she was a Jew or not. By understanding that her father is in the German Air Force one could understand how bad it would be to be treated like a Jew. Plath compares her father to Hitler. She says she was scared of him "with his Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo". (42). She is saying she was always scared of him and his German Air Force. Plath says the "The Germans were rude, and the language obscene/ An engine, an engine/ Chuffing me off like a Jew. (30-32). It seems if she was mistreated by the meaning of this statement, and ignored. Almost as

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Approximate Word count = 1041
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English