My Papa's Waltz By Theodore Roethke

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.

In the last two stanza's, Roethke describes the vivid details of the beating. He describes how one hand clinches the boy's wrist. Clinch seems to be a rather strong word and it indicates a use of forceful grabbing. If this were a happy dance, the author would not use such a strong description. Lines 11-12 shows how the father tries to hit the son but due to his intoxication he misses and grazes the son's ear with the belt buckle. The fourth and final stanza sums up the feelings of the boy towards the father. The words seem to be directly spoken to the dad. This is not the first time this type of action has taken place. The reader gets this interpretation because the boy says," you beat time on my head"

My Papa’s Waltz takes a person back to the son’s childhood. The first two lines say, “The whiskey on your breath, could make a small boy dizzy”. This passage let the readers know what the memory was about. The memory of a father that drank a lot of whiskey. The child’s first memory, was the smell that was strong enough to make him dizzy. The next line said, “But I hung on like death”. The child did not care what the father was, or had done, he still held on to him tightly. During this time, the mother’s frown is one that will not unfrown or go away. The mother could not have been happy, because of her husband’s drinking problem. The next lines said, “The hand that held my wrist, was battered on one knuckle”. This could be interpreted as a possibility of abuse that the child remembers or, that his father worked hard and had injuries on his hands from work. The boy’s thoughts were of a father drinking too much and becoming abusive with his son. One reader had written that Roethke expresses his resentment for his father, a drunken brute with dirty hands and whiskey breath, who carelessly hurt the child’s ear and manhandled him (? 380). That makes a person think that there was some abuse from the father. The last

As the poem progresses, the boy’s tone becomes more playful which reinforces the serious statement about how much he cares for his father. The ‘waltz’ becomes less serious when he says, “We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf” (Roethke, 5). Using a word like romped is a deliberate attempt to make a serious event lighthearted and fun. The only reason a child would make this ‘waltz’ playful is because he wants to protect his father, whom he loves. As the last stanza explains, “You beat time on my head…Then waltzed me off to bed Still clinging to your shirt.” (Roethke, 13-16) Again, the abuse is compared to a waltz which makes it seem lighthearted. The boy is taking a serious affair and making it into a fun event. He uses this good-natured tone because he loves his father and wants to justify this serious affair.

Every one of us has a childhood, some of us may experience a memorable one, while some of us want to erase it from our memory. Everyone also has their own personal feelings towards a father's figure due to their personal experiences they have as a child. The poems "My Father's Song," by Simon J. Ortiz, and "My Papa's Waltz," by Theodore Roethke, are two similar poems written about a father and child relationship. My Papa's Waltz" creates a debate whether the father-son relationship is sweet loving memory or a confession of childhood abuse. The two poems are spoken from the child's point of view during a memorable event in their childhood. The poems "My Father's Song and "My Papa's Waltz" both share a theme of admiration each kid has looking upon their father and a warm memory. The writers use a variety of poetic devices such as tone, word choice, imagery, and figurative language.

“My Papa’s Waltz” is a poem by Theodore Roethke in which a young boy describes the actions of his father under the influence of alcohol. Like most children, the young boy has a naïve mind that observes his father's abuse differently. To the child, it is all a graceful waltz, but he is covering the truth with a happy illusion. This might come from the fact that he is a child and does not know enough or he knows too much and has to numb the pain. In “My Papa’s Waltz” Theodore Roethke uses dramatic irony, understatement, and hyperbole in order to express the idea that in order to numb the pain, one covers it with a happy illusion.

In the fourth and last stanza Roethke re-emphasizes his father as a laborer by once again describing his hands. These are the hands of a man who works in the dirt. A reference made to the father as he “…beat time…” (13) on the boys head, once again portrays the raucous way in which they are dancing; the father keeps time for their waltz while playfully drumming the beat on his child’s head.

In “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, was a great poem that can mean many different things to many different people of this world. To me I think it was just a boy who just wanted to spend time with his dad before he has to go to bed. The boy probably does not get to spend time with his dad that much. The father probably works all day and all week and this is the only time the boy gets to spend with him. Roethke use of words in this poem is amazing. The use of the words in this story can mean different things to the reader. The first word to look at is the word waltz. In the dictionary the word waltz is a dance for a fast triple meter song. This is just what the father is doing with his son but his is drunk and dizzy. “But I hung on

The father had been drinking whiskey and he is so drunk that just the smell of his breath was able to make his son feel a bit woozy. The son is telling his father that his drinking is a problem. The family is torn apart by alcohol and abuse. The waltz represents the father chasing the boy around the kitchen trying to catch him in a fit of drunken anger. When this poem was written it was seen as not being the woman's place to step in when it came to discipline and even today, it's not uncommon to see one parent willingly or unwillingly stand by while the abuse goes on. The line that says, you beat time on my head, is the actual act of the physical abuse. Abuse is reasonably interpret, because the son said that his father had held his wrist. The grabbing of a wrist suggests to me a harsher interaction between to two. I think that if the father was not trying to hurt the boy, it would have been more logical that he would hold the boys’ hand and not his wrist. The boy also stated that his father seemed to brush him with a buckle. This could be a description of a time when the father was drunk and went to strike his son using a belt and missed his backside and hit his ear. This poem seems to take a darker turn as the boy describes the waltz as, not easy. I found that the waltz gets so rough that the pans are

The title of a poem should dictate how the reader approaches the subject that is being discussed. In the title of this poem, the speaker refers to his father as “papa”. This shows that the speaker is very close with his father in this moment. This poem is classified as a lyric, which privileges the individual moment. By looking at what a lyric is, the reader should realize that one cannot assume that the speaker felt this way about his father for his whole life. He is just talking about how he was feeling in that particular moment. “My Papa’s Waltz” is told in a dual point of view. The speaker is thinking back now as an older man about how he felt when he was a child. A “waltz” is defined as “a dance in triple time performed to music in triple time by couples who, almost embracing each other, swing round and round in the same direction with smooth and even steps moving on as they gyrate” (OED). In the poem, Roethke mimics the ¾ time of the traditional waltz with three beats per line and four lines per stanza but reverses the meter. Therefore, the poem is actually a waltz in itself.

He didn’t want to let go because he didn’t know what would happen if he did. “Such waltzing was not easy” made me realize that the son and the father were actually dancing, but gave me the idea that the young boy was helpless and didn’t have a choice. Dancing with a sober father isn’t easy, but dancing with a drunken father is even more difficult. As you may think this dancing is just a form of father-son bonding, it really is not. The kid is not enjoying the dancing going on between the two of them because it seems more painful than enjoyable.

In Theodore Roethke's “My Papa’s Waltz”, the child’s attitude towards his father is considerably ambiguous. While the child addresses his father as “Papa” in the poem’s title—- a term usually reserved for an endearing father figure—-there are hints of tension and roughness in the poem itself. By admitting that he has to “[hang] on like death” (3) to his father, the narrator associates the waltz as something painful he must suffer through. The incorporation of such an atypical simile intensifies the underlying tension of this relationship. Indeed, there are evidence of violence in the poem. The battered knuckle on the father’s guiding hand and the scraped ear the speaker earns every time his father misses a step (9-12) reinforces the poem’s

“My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke is an intriguing poem because of its ambiguity. One could see this as a poem about a child having a playful dance with his dad before bedtime but I see it as a poem about a child being abused by his father because he is an alcoholic. A dance is supposed to symbolize an expression of joyful spirituality and love especially the waltz. Specifically, the title may give the impression that this dance between father and son is a smooth romantic dance but some words and phrases bring an entirely difference image to the mind.

The author Theodore Roethke is an American poet, whom is one of the most successful poets of the 20th century. One of his influential and controversial poem is “My Papa's Waltz.” While the subject of “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke has spurred passionate academic debate from professors, scholars, and students alike, the imagery, syntax, and diction of the poem clearly support the interpretation that Roethke writes “My Papa’s Waltz” to describe his childhood with a father figure as a memorable memory although; he might have experienced physical abuse from his father. Since he is a child, he believes he is just “playing” with his father however, he channeled his drunken father's actions as abuse as he got older. Throughout the poem, there is a well structured rhyme scheme that the author portrays as a child’s point of view, has negative word choice throughout his poem, and horrific imagery; these elements are essential for the readers to realize their perspective of the poem.

In Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz,” the troubles of alcoholism are addressed. To explain the situation, Roethke writes about an unhealthy family in which the father comes home every night drunk and abuses his son. Roethke explains the cultural values of the father by acknowledging the smell of whiskey on his breathe and revealing his abusive personality (Roethke lines one and thirteen). The father has upset everyone in his family and continues to tear the family apart. Despite being abused mentally and physically, the son still somehow finds it in his heart to love his father unconditionally and give him as many second chances as it takes (Roethke line sixteen). All the son wants is to restore order to his family and love his father like a perfect human being. Theodore Roethke talks about the recurring themes of alcohol troubles, an upset family, the metaphor of dancing, and how a son’s love for his father is strong enough to forgive and see through any hardships, including imperfections and unhealthy relationships.