Choice E: “The whipping” by Robert Hayden and “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke
Literature written in a particular style accumulated with rhythm and repetition that
expresses imagery and emotion is poetry. The poetry “The Whipping” by Hayden and “My
Papa’s Waltz” by Roethke express a path towards emotion and a descriptive sense of imagery
and a great use of multi-dimensional language.
Both poems are expressed by action. You can view the action being expressed through
the sense imagery, but they both have a different sense imagery. “The Whipping” portrays a
mother giving a brutal beating to her son until her stick breaks which connects to the author’s
past as he grips his head in his knees as portrayed in the poem. The poem “My Papa’s Waltz”
gives us an imagery of the author’s childhood as he grabs on to his drunk father while he is being
waltzed after his father’s hard day at work. Both poems give a strong sense of emotion and an
imagery of childhood.
The multi-dimensional language is used to link to the authors’ childhood. “The writhing
struggle to wrench free, the blows, the fear worse than blows that hateful words could bring” The
author’s tone and diction used by Robert Hayden led to emotions of sorrow, unforgetfulness, and
pain in his childhood. “You beat time on my head with a palm caked hard by dirt, then waltzed
me off to bed still clinging to your shirt.” Roethke’s use of diction and tone in his poem gave an
emotion of excitement and happiness as showed in this quote.
The theme of “the whipping” by Robert Hayden is pain will always be experienced. It is
sometimes temporary and it may be a permanent memory in your life and it may be difficult to
stop it but there will be a relief. The theme of “My Papa’s waltz” is the normal drunk husband
returning from a hard day’s work nagged angrily by a stay at home mom taking care of the child.
The poems “The Whipping” and “My Papa’s Waltz” do both qualify. They both express
multi-dimensional languages such as diction, tone, imagery, and theme. The authors’ poems do
have a strong sense of emotion which is mainly the focus needed from a poem.