Poem Essay

Ava Mascuch     711

Poem Essay                                                                             03/11/15

Everyone has a different way of showing their love for someone. “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden and “My Papa’s Waltz”  by Theodore Roethke are both poems about father/son relationships and how they show their love for one another. In “Those Winter Sundays”  the father shows his love by putting his son before himself. The son doesn’t fully understand that the father is doing these things out of love. Their relationship isn’t all good.  In “My Papa’s Waltz” the father shows his love by playing with his son and the son appreciates it. They have a good relationship.

In the poem “Those Winter Sundays”  the father shows his love for his son by doing things for him, but he son doesn’t always appreciate the things his father does for him. He does not realize these things are an act of love. Their relationship is not great. An example of this is, “Sundays too my father got up early/ and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold...no one ever thanked him.” This shows that even on Sundays, a day generally set aside for rest, the father got up and did things for his son but the son never appreciated the things he did for him. This doesn’t show a good relationship because the speaker should understand his father is doing these things out of love. None of the things the son is taking for granted would happen without the father. Another example is, “Speaking indifferently to him, / who had driven out the cold.” This states that even after the father makes the room warm for his child he still doesn’t treat the father with respect and thank him. This also doesn’t show a good understanding between father and son.

In “My Papa’s Waltz” the father shows his love for his child by playing with him. The father and son have a good relationship. An example of this is, “We romped until the pans/ slid from the kitchen shelf.” This shows that the father would rough house with his son to show his love. This shows his love because he’s is spending time with his son. They have a good relationship because the son knew his father loved him because the father played with him. Another example is, “You beat time on my head/ with a palm caked hard with dirt/ then waltzed me off to bed/ still clinging to your shirt.” This also states the father and son had a good relationship because even after a hard day at work the father would still play with his son and put him to bed, before caring about his own needs.

In each poem the father shows his love and how much he cares for his child but in different ways. It also shows the father and son relationship and if it was a positive or negative.  We should always try to thank our parents or family for doing things for us and not take these things for granted so we can show our appreciation for them.

Night essay

Ava Mascuch March 6, 2015 

711 

Night Essay

The Holocaust was a terrible time for many people and ended in about eleven million deaths, six million of which were Jews. The book Night by Elie Wiesel is a non-fiction book about himself. He was sent to a concentration camp with his family but is separated from his sister and mother. He tries to survive the camp with his Dad. While reading his book, I discovered that the Holocaust represents the “shadow” archetype in the hero’s journey. A “shadow” is a negative figure, representing evil or things we don’t like.  But the shadow does not think it is doing anything wrong.  The “shadow” is like the Holocaust because the Holocaust represents evil.

The Holocaust represents the shadow because it was an evil thing. For example, “...he slapped my father with such force that he fell down and then crawled back to his place on all fours,” pg. 39. This shows that the Holocaust was evil because the people running the camps did horrible things to the Jews because Hitler wanted to eradicate their race. This was not all the Germans did to the the Jews. They whipped them, starved them and forced them to work under harsh conditions. Another example is,  When they were being evacuated from the concentration camp, “Near me, men were collapsing into the dirty snow. Gunshots.” Pg. 86. The people involved in the Holocaust were so evil that they would kill the prisoners that didn’t run fast enough. Lastly, when Elie is in the concentration camp Buna it states, “We knew what it meant. An SS would examine us. Whenever he found something extremely frail--a “Muselman” was what we called those inmates--he would write down his number: good for the crematorium.” Pg. 70. This states that the Holocaust as evil because they would kill innocent people just because they weren’t strong enough and didn’t pass the test.

The Holocaust time period is like the “shadow” because the people running the concentration camps don’t think they are doing anything wrong. For instance, while they were being transported the guards ran into German girls, “The guards began to tease them...they were all laughing, joking and passing love notes to one another.” Pg. 46. This shows that the guards don’t understand what they are doing to the Jews is wrong because they are acting like it’s a normal day, laughing and talking to the girls. They were not affected by what they were doing. Lastly, on the website www.theholocaustexplained.org it talks about Hiltler’s point of view, “He thought Germans should have enough ‘living space’ and that only people of Ayran blood should live in Germany... he also wanted to rid Germany of the mentally and physically disabled, because they were seen as imperfect and also a drain on the resources of the ‘master race’.” This shows that Hitler wanted wanted this perfect ‘master race’ and he didn’t see Jewish or disabled people in that society. He thought he was helping Germany because he was giving the Germans more ‘living space’ by getting rid of the Jews. This did not help the Germans because many of the Germans died during World War II.

The Holocaust was a very dark part of history, it changed and ended many peoples lives. It 

represents evil because of the horrible things that were done to the Jewish people.  Night shows 

how hard the Holocaust was and that there is not always a happy ending. It is hard to believe that 

evil of this magnitude could take place in the world. We have to recognize and remember these 

parts of history so they are never repeated.