‘The Waking’ is a mysterious poem written by the very famous Theodore Roethke in 1953. It is a villanelle in which some lines are repeatedly expressed. The poet’s work in poetry is famous for its investigation and exploration of the inner self all the way through the manifestation of the family as well as nature. His poems have a lot of depth in addition to technological expertise. His mental sickness also made a basis for him to glance into the darkness and obscurity from time to time, along with recording his inner existence in his poems. The Waking is also one of his deepest and most meaningful poems of all time. In this paper, we will discuss how the poet puts some ideas presumptuously about life as well as about how to live life. The poem is all within the conventional rhyming along with the iambic pentameter figure.
This tells you that we ought to never wake as a sleepwalker. The bewilderment would be tremendous. Also, it makes for plenty of sagacity when we comprehend and understand this poem deeply. The locations and situations of “The Waking” happen more often than not inside the speaker’s brainpower as the poet “wakes to sleep” and considers his aperture consciousness to be who he is as well as what he can be familiar with. It is not in anticipation of line 8 that you acquire whatever thing from the materialistic world.
Subsequently, the poem commences to, in fact, move in and out of the “genuine” world, not merely in the speaker’s intellect, to gaze around at several natural creatures that encase this “going’ or ‘happening.” The poem’s mood is provoking, waking, and spreading awareness. It’s also in a little depressing state.
In this poem, the poet wants to caution society about life; it traps and measures to avoid the traps. We all live to die, as the poet said, “I wake to sleep.” The world is nothing but an illusion. We have to die one day, leaving behind everything we once owed. Our lives are slowly passing; we aren’t afraid of fate and are just doing things in ways we want. In our lives, we learn step by step; we learn by mistakes; we learn by learning where to go. There are things in life that we hear frequently. We hear a lot of things, but everything is not for us (Gale, 2016).
The speaker of the poem, i.e., the poet, suggests that we humans possess rational thoughts based on the things we feel or sense. We are emotional creatures, relatively more than logical. Humans are not machines. Humans express and articulate feelings; they possess feelings, which is the end of the story. We think that we know everything, and sometimes we think that we know enough; that makes a difference. Life is unpredictable. A stroke of light takes the tree, and no one knows how exactly this happens, and no one can repair it. That’s how it works: once it’s finished, you never come back. It’s the rule of nature.
The meaning and purpose of this poem, in my opinion, is that life is just a simple thing that is being made complicated. We all live to die at the end but live it purposefully, not as materialistic human beings and working like a machine. Listen and understand the feelings, give rights, and take rights. We live once, love our lives, and learn from each experience. Let the things go in flow and go with the flow. Life is slowly finishing; live it usefully.
References
Retrieved from < https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43333/the-waking-56d2220f25315>
Gale, C. L. (2016). A Study Guide for Theodore Roethke’s” The Waking”. Gale, Cengage Learning.
