Analysis Of My Father's Song

In “My Papa’s Waltz,” Theodore Roethke illustrates an image of a father-son romp around the kitchen that is both harsh in its play and delicate in its memory. Roethke illustrates the poem’s images from his own childhood memories. Roethke uses simple words to create puzzling phrases that could be interpreted in different ways. The poem is ambiguous due to certain word choices that have baffling double meanings. Roethke’s poem paints an image of his childhood interactions with his father. Roethke paints this picture by using ambiguity within a waltz-like structure.

As we get older we tend to reflect more on our life and get our priorities together. We tend to realize who and what is important, the people who mean the most to us and the ones we can’t live without. Who would those significant individuals be for us? For most people it would be their parents. In the poems “My Father’s Song” by Simon J. Ortiz, and “My Mother” by Ellen Bryant Voigt, both writers express their emotion towards a parent. The poems are similar in many ways simply because they share a parent child relationship, they are also vastly different. “My Fathers Song” is a poem about a son who lost his father and is grieving and referring back to old memories, reflecting on their past and the wonderful time he had with his father. “My Mother” on the other hand is a poem about a daughter who lost her mother and is having a difficult time coping as she reflects on the decisions she made as a child and how that affected her relationship with her mother. Despite their differences, the two poems share a true connection of love towards their parent. Most notably “My Fathers Song” and “My Mother” differ in the relationship with their parent, the settings in which the memories they hold of their parents take place, and who they are mourning over, yet the two have a strong emphasis on love.

The Tone of “Daddy” and “My Papa’s Waltz” is what differentiates the two child-father relationships in the poems from one another with “Daddy” having a tone of hate and fear

Poetry is made to express the feelings, thoughts, and emotions of the poet. The reader can interpret the poem however they see fit. Critics are undecided about the theme of Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz." Some people believe that the poem is one of a happy exchange between a father and son. The more convincing interpretation is that it has a hidden message of parental abuse. Careful analysis of the keywords and each individual stanza back up this theory of child abuse by a violent and drunken father.

In the third stanza, the narrator is remembering some details like the broken knuckle of his father (line 10), and that his ear was scraping on his father's belt buckle (line 12). As well in the fourth stanza, the narrator mentions the dirt caked on his father's hand (line 14). These images of the son imply a hard working father who had just come home from the plant and was spending time with his little son before putting him to bed. These images also support my point of view that the author still has pleasant memories of the event, which would not be the case if there was abuse,

“My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke sparks differing opinions within the minds of many. Roethke was influenced greatly by his experiences as a young boy. For instance, his uncle and father both died when he was the age of fourteen. “My Papa’s Waltz” is written in remembrance of his father after this dreadful occurrence. The author’s use of imagery brings light to the his adoration for his father. Notably, his way of stringing together ideas reinforces the fond memories they shared. Roethke’s captivating choice of words supports his purpose to make known the love he has for this man. While the subject of “My Papa’s Waltz” has spurred passionate academic debate from professors, scholars, and students alike, the imagery, syntax, and diction of the poem clearly support the interpretation that Theodore Roethke writes “My Papa’s Waltz” to bring attention to the loving relationship he had with his father.

The writer is describing that even when he cannot physically endure the smell of his father's liquor, he is still fastened to him no matter the obstacle. After all, Roethke is comparing the physical abuse to an elegant dance: the waltz. On a different note, it is vital to identify the importance the titles play in the poems.

In the poem My Papa’s Waltz by Theodore Roethke, he looks back in his memory as a child and explains the love he has for his father despite all the flaws his father holds. Roethke describes his emotions through this poem by using diction, imagery, and the use of tone.

In comparing and contrasting the poems, "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke and "Piano" by D. H. Lawrence, the reader could also compare and contrast the childhood lives of the poets themselves. Roethke's father, Otto Roethke, was a drunk and a figure of terror to his son (Seager 26). His mother was an angry woman and Theodore was a desperate child consistently in the middle of his parent's opposition (Seager 28). D.H. Lawrence's father was a drunk, almost illiterate miner (Squires and Talbot 34). His mother; however, was educated, refined, and pious, ruling the lives of her sons (Squires and Talbot 42). Reviewing the form, tone, and imagery of both poems, the attitude of the boy towards his father in Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz" allows

Firstly, In "My Father's Song," the tone is nostalgia, it's a perfect demonstration of emotion the speaker feels about his father. "My Papa's Waltz," poem's tone is playful and light created by the pleasant rhythm iambic, which makes the poem short and sweet. The tone is promoted through word choice, Both writers use similar word choice to strengthen the theme of admiration. In the poem, "My Papa's Waltz," gives us a both and negative feeling, he uses words such as "Still clinging to your shirt" this shows that he hangs onto his father's shirt, not wanting to let go after his father waltzing him off to bed. His descriptions of the dance give us a fun, playful feeling. Despite the fact the waltz is tough, he still loves his dad. In "My Father's song," the speaker remembers his father’s voice. The speaker describes his experience as “His voice, the slight catch, the depth from his this thin crest, the tremble of emotion in something he has just said to his son, his song” (Ortiz 3-7). The speaker remembers every detail about his father. The child misses his father and cared profoundly about him, especially more tonight “Wanting to say things, I miss my father tonight” (1-2)

The setting of the poem is very important to understand key elements that the poet is trying to express. The poem, “My Papa’s Waltz,” is set in the family’s kitchen. The lines “The whiskey on your breath…slid from the kitchen shelf;” let the readers assume

Roethke also uses the third stanza to give an indication of the boy’s size. The narrator reflects of scraping his ear on his father’s belt when his father stumbles which describes the boy as waist high to his father and probably not any older than six or seven. The scraping of the boy’s ear seems of no consequence. Like any child when playing rough with a parent or sibling, he shrugs it off and keeps going, just happy in the moment.

The poem "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke is a moving representation of childhood spent in a working middle class family. The speaker of this poem is a man recalling his childhood, his father and his mother through the means of a waltz. The following essay will present a detailed analysis of the dramatic situation and speaker through the explanations of the various poetic tools used in this poem such as similes, choice of words and style.

A child’s future is usually determined by how their parent’s raise them. Their characteristics reflect how life at home was like, if it had an impeccable effect or destroyed the child’s entire outlook on life. Usually, authors of any type of literature use their experiences in life to help inspire their writing and develop emotion to their works. Poetry is a type of literary work in which there is an intensity given to the expression of feelings and ideas by the use of distinct styles and rhythm. These distinct styles include different types of poems such as sonnets, villanelles, free verse, imagist poems, and many more. And these distinct styles are accentuated with the use of literary devices such as metaphors, similes, imagery, personification, rhyme, meter, and more. As a whole, a poem depicts emotions the author and reader’s can relate to. In the poem’s “Those Winter Sundays,” by Robert Hayden, and “My Papa’s Waltz,” by Theodore Roethke, we read about two different parent and child relationships. These two poems help portray the flaws and strength’s parents exhibit and how their children follow their actions and use it as a take away in their grown up lives.

In the poem, I get a sense that there is no bond, like my father and I have which leads to confusion in the narrator's life. For instance, in line eight when he says, "I would slowly rise and dress,/ fearing the chronic angers of the house"(8-9), this gives me a strong sense of sadness, for him because I feel that he is greatly deprived of what every child should have a good role model as a father, and someone to look up to. “Speaking Indifferently to him, / who had driven out the cold”(10-11) is saying that they really did not know how to communicate with each other. I feel that the boy will regret not having and knowing what it is that makes you who you are, and may never get a chance to have and hold a special bond with his father and having a relationship with a person that can not be held with anyone else. This would bring an enormous amount of sadness to my life had I not had my Dad there to guide and protect me, when I could have used tremendous support and security.