Fatherhood. We start out by Thomass Do not go gentle into that good night, moving to Plaths Daddy, and eventually arriving to Roethkes My papas waltz.

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Fatherhood in the eyes of Thomas, Plath, and Roethke

               A father is the most effective person on one’s psychological condition. Dylan Thomas, Sylvia Plath, and Theodore Roethke tell their own stories about their own “dads”. We start out by Thomas’s “Do not go gentle into that good night”, moving to Plath’s “Daddy”, and eventually arriving to Roethke’s “My papa’s waltz”. This piece of writing will focus on the theme of Fatherhood with which the three poets have dealt with in their dramatic monologues.

               “Do not Go Gentle into that Good Night” is what Dylan names his poem. Thomas- in a firm voice tone- demands people not to surrender themselves to death easily. Well, first of all he commands old men not to die peacefully or just slip away easily from this life. He rather asks them to “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” He then starts categorizing me into 4 types: Wise men, Good men, Wild men, and “his dad”! Hence, the poem addresses many types of men; however, he thinks of his father not as the grave, wild, or good, but that he is a category by himself.

              The fact that he is not concerned whether his father curses him or blesses him before his death or not shows that he is not necessarily concerned with what his father wants to say, but that he wants him to “rage against the dying of the light”. So, the father-son relationship that happens here is intimate. Thomas maybe upset about his father’s closeness to death –“sad height”—but fighting death would unburden him a bit. In fact, Thomas wants to maintain the hero-father image he has of his father to the end.

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              The one and only, Sylvia Plath, re-astonishes us with one of her disturbing – but artful- poems. “Daddy” which looks endearing from its title is actually quiet disturbing. The father-daughter relationship that Plath demonstrates is the kind of relationships that haunt you your whole life. Plath resembled her father to three main images: A Nazi, the Devil, a vampire, and her husband! She had also implicitly likened her father to other things like: A black shoe, a God, a swastika, and a panzer-man. Plath starts out by saying that she would not ...

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