Tone And Mood Of The Poem My Father Son Roethke
Lines 1-2
The first order of business in a poem is to establish situation and mood, and Roethke selects the father’s drinking as the foremost fact to be conveyed. The tone is slightly comic, as the speaker suggests that there was enough alcohol on the father’s breath to inebriate a child. This observation implies that the father had consumed a substantial amount of whiskey, since the smell of it was very potent. These lines also establish a closeness between the two figures. The poem is a direct address from the son to the father, evoking a feeling of intimacy between them.
Line 3
The sense of closeness is further emphasized in this line. Here it is physical closeness, as the child is said to have clutched onto his father. The description “like death” introduces a note of fear or perhaps desperation. A grip “like death” is extremely tenacious, indicating that the person …show more content…
The father’s hand held his son’s wrist. The man’s actions had direct consequences for the boy (his missed steps caused the boy’s ear to be scraped), as if the two were joined. Both figures were injured, the father on his knuckle, the son on his ear. These hurts introduce a note of pain. The father apparently received his from his labor, but the son’s injury was directly caused by his dancing with — his relationship with — his father.
Lines: 13-14
The picture of the father’s hand, hardened by toil, recalls the image of the other one in lines 9-10. This hand kept rhythm on the boy’s head in an odd little gesture, as if he meant, as the colloquial expression goes, to drive it into his son’s brain. The insistent, Morse Code-like tapping seems intended to convey to the boy how the dance was supposed to go, not how it actually did go (with its clumsiness and missed steps). The father-son relationship should have been smooth and easy but in reality was awkward and stumbling.
Lines:
The first order of business in a poem is to establish situation and mood, and Roethke selects the father’s drinking as the foremost fact to be conveyed. The tone is slightly comic, as the speaker suggests that there was enough alcohol on the father’s breath to inebriate a child. This observation implies that the father had consumed a substantial amount of whiskey, since the smell of it was very potent. These lines also establish a closeness between the two figures. The poem is a direct address from the son to the father, evoking a feeling of intimacy between them.
Line 3
The sense of closeness is further emphasized in this line. Here it is physical closeness, as the child is said to have clutched onto his father. The description “like death” introduces a note of fear or perhaps desperation. A grip “like death” is extremely tenacious, indicating that the person …show more content…
The father’s hand held his son’s wrist. The man’s actions had direct consequences for the boy (his missed steps caused the boy’s ear to be scraped), as if the two were joined. Both figures were injured, the father on his knuckle, the son on his ear. These hurts introduce a note of pain. The father apparently received his from his labor, but the son’s injury was directly caused by his dancing with — his relationship with — his father.
Lines: 13-14
The picture of the father’s hand, hardened by toil, recalls the image of the other one in lines 9-10. This hand kept rhythm on the boy’s head in an odd little gesture, as if he meant, as the colloquial expression goes, to drive it into his son’s brain. The insistent, Morse Code-like tapping seems intended to convey to the boy how the dance was supposed to go, not how it actually did go (with its clumsiness and missed steps). The father-son relationship should have been smooth and easy but in reality was awkward and stumbling.
Lines: