Root Cellar
After reading the poem written by Theodore Roethke, entitled Root Cellar, I envisioned a dark, scary, ghost story. The poem was very understandable to read and on the surface it explains vegetables in a root cellar. The text has a literal meaning of that but the figurative language Roethke used in his poem painted a very different picture then a plan root cellar. I saw dead and living things in the dark. I believe the poem Root Cellar is about more than just an underground pantry of vegetables, but instead Roethke is trying to tell a story of a scary place where things were still leaving and he was frightened of this place.
Voice, language, and imagery in Theodore Roethke's Root Cellar gave the feeling of horror and disgust. Roethke explains it is a dark looming place, smelly and old. The poem filled with words such as "dank", "dark", and "manure".
Theodore Roethke
Root cellar
A potato Cellar near Firth, IdahoThese words have a pessimistic tone. He hated the place he was speaking of. I believe the poem portraits a place where ghost are inhabited and Roethke is afraid and wishes to not go there.
The title of the poem is Root Cellar. A root cellar is built on to a farmhouse and is used as nature's way of storing fruits and vegetables and anything that needs to stay cooled. They can be excellent storage areas for other things as well. Unlike a basement a root cellar is not accessible from the house. You must leave the house to enter the root cellar. In this case things can be hidden away from public view. Secret things could have been going on down there that few could have ever see or know about.
When Roethke says "nothing would sleep" in the first line, I started to...