"Root Cellar" Essay

The Light of Darkness

In his poem “Root Cellar,” writer Theodore Roethke depicts the resilience of life and its tendency to be found in even the gloomiest of places. Roethke expresses these themes through the details of the grim surroundings and showing that even under these circumstances life flourishes.

Roethke illustrates the cellar that the poem takes place in as a gloomy and harsh atmosphere to create for the reader the harshest environment imaginable. Throughout the poem Roethke uses alliteration of the letter “d” to create the “dank” and “dark” setting that the reader imagines in her mind. Words beginning with the letter “d” appear often in and their frequency makes the darkness and gloominess of the surroundings the main focus of the poem. Along with the use of alliteration to achieve this effect, Roethke also uses many comparisons in the forms of metaphors and similes to compare the cellar to some other dark or “rank” object and enhance the dismal sense of the place. The cellar is said to be as “dank as ad ditch,” adding to the overall atmosphere of the poem.

Similarly, Roethke subtly makes life present in the poem even under the harsh circumstances. The alliteration of the letter “b” in the poem contrasts the hostility of the “d” alliteration and injects life into the scene. Roethke describes “bulbs break[ing] out of boxes and hunting” for light within the dark cellar. The poem concludes with “even… dirt,” which is a dark “d” word, “breathing a small breath” and actually being alive. By making the dead dirt “breathing” and by making bulbs of some plant break out of the containment of darkness and “hunt” for life sustaining light, Roethke shows that life is resilient and wins over death and darkness. This is stated in the first and tenth lines of the poem where the fact that nothing in the root cellar “would give up life.”

Though root cellars may appear sinister and bleak, poet Roethke in this poem plays on the contrast between the cellar’s appearance and its function of preserving the freshness- and thus life- of the vegetables that are placed inside. In “Root Cellar,” Roethke contrasts the piece’s dark and gloomy tone with an ultimately reassuring meaning that life goes on and thrives even in the darke

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  1. UnknownJune 18, 2018 at 8:54 AM

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