When one person speaks to another person, it is very easy to understand how they feel about their topic. If their voice is soft and their hands hang loosely at their sides, they may be content or relaxed. If their fists are clenched and THEY BEGIN TO YELL, they are angry. Of course, it's easy to understand someone when you can see their body language and listen to their voice, but how do you know what a writer means when you read their work?
Understanding a writer's tone is critical. To misunderstand tone is to misunderstand a poem or story. How then do you understand the tone of a poem? The key to understanding any poem is to look at:
1. Diction (word choice and its connotations)
2. Rhyme scheme (Is there rhyme present, or does the poem lack rhyme)
3. Images (Are the images beautiful? light? dark? frightening?)
After analyzing these three areas, you can begin to unlock tone. Look at 6-8 words in a short poem to analyze diction and connotation. Is the rhyme scheme constant? Use the images to help visualize the scene being portrayed. Once you analyze these areas, read the poem one more time. Does the author have the same tone about the subject as the speaker? If not, the tone may ironic. If the author and speaker share the same tone, you may find tones of joy or melancholy, contentment or anger, nostalgia or resentment, etc. Basically, any word that describes how a person can feel emotionally can be a tone.
Go to TP CASTT to find out more about reading poetry.
Now read "My Papa's Waltz" below. Answer the questions listed by creating a hypertext, and try to discover the tone of the poem. We will review the poem on Monday to see how you did, so do not upload this poem until we have our discussion. If you are completely stuck, see if you can find any criticism on Theodore Roethke's poem on the internet.
1. Identify the rhyme scheme of the poem.
ABABCDCDEFEFGG
Alternating rhyme schemes.
2. Identify 7 examples of diction and state each word's connotation.
whiskey: drunk
dizzy: you dont know where you are
waltzing: formal dancing
romping: rough housing
countenounce: tolerating, the mom is not pleased
beat: keeping tempo
waltz me off to bed: he wants to be danced to bed
clinging: you dont want to let go
3. Identify 3 sound devices in the poem
breath/death
dizzy/easy
pans/countenance
4. Identify 4 images in the poem
1. Whiskey on your breath: this shows that the main character is drunk, which is often compared to waltzing because waltzing is considered a strange dance which only a drunk man may be bad at.
2. But I hung on like death: death seems to linger around us all and it never continues to stop.
3.
5. After examining your evidence, state the speaker's attitude toward his father. Justify your answer in a 3-4 sentence paragraph.
The author is explaining to us that his father made him practice relentlessly in order to be the best waltzer around. He is explaining to us that he tried as hard as he could to please his father and his knuckles bled from being punished by doing wrong steps. His father is just drunk while the child is having fun.
My Papa's Waltz
Theodore Roethke
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.