Have you ever seen or had a bad relationship with a male figure in your life? Children around the world get abused every day, weather is physical or mental abuse leaving an impact on their lives forever. In the two poems Daddy by Sylvia Plath and My Papas Waltz by Theodore Roethke the main subject that the authors portray is their fathers. Daddy and My Papas Waltz are both still similar but do not have the same tones throughout. Plath and Roethke both show not only a tone towards the father but mental and physical abuse through a childs perspective. Theodore Roethke is a great poet from the 1940s who wrote throughout the 1960s. Born in Michigan, his father was a German immigrant who dies when Theodore was 14 years old. He later called himself unhappy, because of this death in his family. Sylvia Plath was a poet of the 20th century born in 1932 in Boston, who
had an obsession with death and emotion. Otto Plath, Sylvias father, a German immigrant college professor who died when Sylvia was only 10 years old. She suffered from depression in her undergraduate years because of this led to her death. Plath committed suicide at 32 years old. Sylvia Plath conveys a message in Daddy that is letting all of her anger out on her father while Theodore Roethke is showing more of understanding approach, but still showing the relationship that he has had with his father. The small boy that is in My Papa Waltz is still understanding what his father has done for the fact he was mistreated as a child. her childhood. Plath was never abused as a child but, he hated what her father has done to others. The tone in both stories Daddy and My Papa Waltz shows the reader the mental and physical abuse throughout the childhood of the children.