Innocent Love Walter McDonalds Essays

Innocent Love Walter McDonalds Essays Innocent Love Walter McDonalds Essay Innocent Love Walter McDonalds Essay Walter McDonald and Theodore Roethke similarly use sound devices in diverse ways to emphasize different facets of their poems while ultimately continuing to uphold a shared theme. Roethke does a particularly good job in My Papas Waltz of replicating the cadence of a waltz in the meter of its stanzas. Roethkes arrangement of mutes, aspirates, and semivowels not only complements the waltz like rhythm but also is able to highlight certain words and phrases. The first two stanzas of the poem, much like the introduction of the waltz, are smooth, long and flowing. The plurality of semivowels, aspirates, liquids and vowels almost trick our ears into believing we are actually hearing a waltz and the dancers are gliding effortlessly across the floor. However, in the third and fourth stanzas, the waltz comes to an abrupt halt with its smooth progressive rhythm being broken up by a collection of mutes. Words such as battered, missed, scraped, beat and clinging all break up the graceful waltz and suggest a more negative meaning. The emergence of mutes, especially in the last stanza where there is a strong mute ending in every line, Roethke suggests a paradox in the waltz where there seems to be a kind of underlying danger and violence to the dancing. The alcoholism of the father seems to be kept in check more or less by the controlled rhythm of the waltz and by the fathers and sons desire to maintain intimacy with each other. The waltz starts with a vowel sound, whiskey, but ends with appropriately a strong mute of clinging and connection. In contrast, in Walter McDonalds Life With Father there is a severe absence of strong mutes. Much like how the children hide from whiskey / in daddys snoring the poem flows through the seemingly pleasant vowels, aspirate, liquids and semivowels. Daddy is a perfect word that is a representation of the love and respect that comes from the constant fear that the children have for their father. McDonald could have easily inserted a strong mute to bring out the immense fear and panic of the children, but by not doing so he is able to show reverence and respect. The sound utilized by McDonald almost seems to stress softness, motion and ease. Even though fear is clearly apparent, the childrens overlying feelings of affection and respect for their father carry on amidst the strife and terror. The life with father cannot be even closely described as normal but yet the sounds utilized give us the impression that the children must be satisfied, and are thankful for what they have and find joy wherever possible. Thus we see that the overlying conflict between alcoholic parents and their simplistic nai ve children are often revealed explicitly in such poems as Life with Father and My Papas Waltz. Here both Walter McDonald and Theodore Roethke create an interesting paradox in their poems when they focus on the cruelty, brutality and viciousness of alcoholism in the home especially in relation to families but yet accentuate the ongoing feelings of love, affection, respect and compassion that children continue to hold for their fathers despite their faults. The similarities and differences of these poems in imagery and sound devices respectively, draw attention to the common theme that these poems have. McDonald and Roethke stress very effectively the strength of the family unit and its ability to preserve and endure through hardship. Problems such as alcoholism often break up families but these poems are a testament to the importance of the family unit and its unity and how amidst all conflict, love persists and thus can bind together all things.