POETRY

N -
T I O
E TA C
T R L I
I N B O
S Y M
AHMAD AMSYAR BIN ABDULLAH
NURAZLINDA BINTI AZHAR
NURUL JANNAH BINTI HUSSIN
 DEFINITION
• A symbol is an image which suggests
or represents something other than
itself. In poetry, a symbol represents
both what it is, and additionally, a
concept or an idea.
• Sometimes, it is difficult to separate the
actual meaning of a symbol from what
the symbol represents
• Symbols come in many forms and are
not always objects.
• Colors are often used in poetry, often
changing what they symbolize according
to their culture and context.
• Symbolism surrounds us. We see it in
magazines, on outdoor advertising, and
in all forms of visual media.  
• No symbols have absolute meanings,
and, by their nature, we cannot read
them at face value.
• Rather than beginning an inquiry into
symbols by asking what they mean, it is
better to begin by asking what
they could mean, or what they have
meant.
 EXAMPLE OF SYMBOL
• "Dawn" is used to symbolize "beginning“
• “Winter" often symbolizes closure or
approaching death.
• Red may symbolize carnage and
bloodshed in one poem, and happiness
and celebration in another.
 POEM
• The whiskey on your breath 
Could make a small boy dizzy; 
But I hung on like death: 
Such waltzing was not easy. 

We romped until the pans 

Slid from the kitchen shelf; 
My mother’s countenance 
Could not unfrown itself. 
• The hand that held my wrist 
Was battered on one knuckle; 
At every step you missed 
My right ear scraped a buckle. 

You beat time on my head 

With a palm caked hard by dirt, 
Then waltzed me off to bed 
Still clinging to your shirt.
 SYMBOLIC IN THE POEM
• Such waltzing was not easy. 
– As dances go, a waltz is not that complicated or
technically difficult. It is more like the foxtrot than
the tango.
– Someone must lead in a waltz, which underscores
the father’s dominance over his child. It is not the
fact that the child is being led, but instead the way
the father is leading that makes the dance “not
easy.”
• Then waltzed me off to bed 
– This last line complicates any easy interpretation
of Roethke’s poem. The use of waltz as a figure of
speech invites us to interpret the father’s waltz as
a symbol (the child is being waltzed, figuratively
and literally, to bed).
– The poem indicates early on that the waltz is not
easy, and yet it ends with the comfort and stability
of bed.