Roethke and Salinas Gabriel Mourao

 

Gabriel Mourao

 

Theodore’s Papa’s Waltz is a complete contrast to Luis Omar’s My Father is a Simple Man. While one poem is about an alcoholic father that is physically abusive but loving of his son. While the other poem the is about a father that is old, calm, quiet, and passive. The contrast is clear as day, but one thing to note about the two behaviors about the two men is that they both love their sons very much. When the drunk father would,” Then waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt” (Theodore Roethke) this action of tucking his child to sleep is a way of caring. In Luis Omar’s poem you can also see the father is very caring and wants his son to be healthy, “He's sure I'll be healthy so long as I eat more oranges” (Luis Omar Salinas). There similarities show and the differences in the poem aren’t so clear as bad alcoholic dad vs good kind dad. In Theodore’s poem for example the father tucks his son to sleep and plays with him a dance. Although the son does not see it as a playful dance, we can give the father the benefit of the doubt and say that maybe through the father’s eyes he is playing with his son. Something similar can be said with Luis’s poem, the father tells his son not to fear death and to be healthy, but that advise can lead to adverse connotations. Fear is an essential part of human survival, so much so that if we lose it things that we should run away from, like a bear, catch us and at worse killing us. Although the two poems may seem like an open and shut case it may not be like that as we don’t have full context. But I digress, because I’m not saying this to justify the two father’s actions nor am I choosing a side and labeling them. I want to show others that stories aren’t so clear as day and that there is no hero and bad guy, but instead circumstances and perspectives



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