Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Parent Child Relatonships

Relationships between children and their parents are prevalent in the poems “The Video” by Fleur Adcock, “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, and “Bored” by Margaret Atwood. Each of these poems deal with a different kind of relationship between a child and a parent.
“The Video” talks about a girl who feels they no longer get the same attention they had before her sister was born. The title actually refers to the video taken of Ceri’s little sister, Laura being born. Ceri, “watched Laura come out, and then in reverse, she made her go back in.” It is important to carefully pay attention to the words used. Ceri would “watch” her sister come out, but then “make” her go back in. This implies that she wants her to go back in and wishes she did not have a sister. The reason why she would want this is because she does not get the attention she once had. This can be seen by a previous line where it says Ceri’s mom after the birth, “was twice as busy”, meaning she had two kids so was now two times busier. Previously, when Ceri was the only child she received all the attention and it appears that she misses that so much to the point that she wants to make her little sister go away.
“My Papa’s Waltz” shows another sort of problem from a child’s point of view besides lack of attention. The poem is about a young boy who has to deal with a drunken father on what seems to be a normal basis. What makes the reader know the father is drink is the first line which says, “The whisky on your breath could make a small boy dizzy.” This line has a negative connotation and shows the narrators displeasure with the drinking. The father is dancing with the boy doing a waltz and was so drunk that he was missing a lot of steps as indicated in the lines, “At every step you missed my right ear scraped a buckle.” This shows physical pain brought upon the boy due to the father’s drinking. The father eventually waltzed the boy off to bed. The fact that the boy was waltzed off to bed makes the reader think that this may not have been the only time something like this may have happened. Perhaps that is how the boy went to bed every night, by his drunk father bringing him to bed.
The third poem, “Bored” is about a boy who once use to always be bored following around Dad and helping him, but realizes how happy he was during this time of his life. The child did not seem to mind his father at all, but just complained of all the boring things he had to do with him for example, “Holding the log while he sawed it. Holding the string while he measured, boards, distances between things, or pounded stakes in the ground for rows and rows”. These things, the narrator found very boring and made him want to leave that life as fast as possible. He never understood how his dad could have lived that life until later when he reflected back. He says at the end of the poem, “Perhaps though boredom is happier”. He also says how that life would no longer be boring for him so showing how he has changed now that he has left and looked back. He now understands why his father lived that life and how his father did not see it as boring but as happiness.
All three of these poems shows relationships between parents and children. Despite this common similarity, they are all still different as each relationship, problems with it, and scenario is different. Each poem has its own individual conflict and characters who face them.