The Storm By Theodore Roethke

1
The Storm By Theodore Roethke

• Robert Bray
• James Uglow

2

• Against the stone breakwater,
• Only an ominous lapping,
• While the wind whines overhead,
• Coming down from the mountain,
• Whistling through the arbors, the winding
  terraces
• A thin whine of wires, a rattling and flapping of
  leaves,
• And the small street lamp swinging and slamming
  against the lamp pole

Roethke also uses personification. He does this
to make the storm sound alive and to add mystery
to the poem. Personification is also used in
Patrolling Barnegat
Roethke uses a lot of alliteration in the poem.
He does this to clearly separate each line.
Whitman also uses a lot of alliteration in
Patrolling Barnegat
3

• Where have the people gone?
• There is one light on the mountain.

Here, Roethke uses a rhetorical question. He does
this to make the reader think about what is going
on. This also adds mystery because the reader
doesnt know what has happened to the people or
who is in the mountain. Whitman also uses a
rhetorical question in Patrolling Barnegat for
the same reason
4

• Along the sea wall, a steady sloshing of the
  swell,
• The waves not yet high, but even,
• Coming closer and closer upon each other
• A fine flume of rain driving in from the sea,
• Riddling the sand, like a wide spray of buckshot,
• The wind from the sea and the wind from the
  mountain contending,
• Flicking the foam from the whitecaps straight
  upward into the darkness.

Roethke uses more alliteration here.
Roethke uses repetition to reflect the repetitive
nature of the storm like Whitman does at the
start of Patrolling Bargnegat
Roethke speaks of light and dark to create a
contrast like in Patrolling Barnegat.
5

• A time to go home!
• And a childs dirty shift