Frank McCourt's Pulitzer Prize winning memoir, Angela's Ashes and Theodore Roethke's poem, My Papa's Waltz have thematic similarities. Both texts are talking about alcoholic fathers, dysfunctional families, mothers' roles and a painful childhood but, they are looking at these issues in different point of views and use of language. McCourt seems more sincere with his use of language.

The texts share the themes of alcoholic fathers and thus, dysfunctional families and a painful childhood which is more vivid in Angela's Ashes. Frank is observing his father in a passive and a humorous way as we can see in these sentences, "He tried to speak. Zeese shildren should be in bed. Lishen to me. Shildren got to bed"(93). He makes us feel sympathy towards him. Whereas, Roethke portrays an aggressive, abusive father but, we don't get to hear it from his mouth. Instead we get it out of the...