My Papa's Waltz Personal Analysis

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"

In the third stanza of the poem, Roethke points out to the readers that his father was continuously missing steps while they were waltzing. “At every step you missed / my right ear scraped a buckle.” (11-12) . This demonstrates that because of the fact that his father missed steps since he was drunk, resulted in the poet being physically hurt. This part of the poem reveals that the father is now becoming abusive. Roethke’s use of the word “death” in the first stanza, right away implies that the poet was frightened by his father. In the second stanza the poet uses the word “romp” which is associated with playing roughly. This also indicates that it was not very safe for the poet to be waltzing with his father. The mother frowning also demonstrates that she does not approve of this activity. The last stanza of the poem reaffirms that there was violence present. Roethke states “You beat time on my head / With a palm caked hard by dirt.” (13-14) . The father’s hand “caked hard by dirt” demonstrates that the father was a hard labor worker but the use of the word “beat” makes this line

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,

At first glance, “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke is very intriguing as the poem is very ambiguous at first. Many people that read the poem at first believe it to be about child abuse, which is very easy for readers of the 21st generation to confuse as we see everything with a dark meaning behind it. The poem is about a boy who dances with his father, hence the name of the poem “My Papa’s Waltz”. Once the poem has been reread several times, we can take a closer look at what Roethke is really implying in the poem. Therefore, it becomes clear to the audience that the poem has a lighter meaning and has a more positive outlook than a negative outlook to the situation occurring in the poem.

In the poem, Roethke uses diction that shows his emotions towards his father. In the first stanza, the poet says:” The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy.” Even though his father is a drunk he still loves him. He says “I hung on like death” which emphasizes the bond he has with his father while they are waltzing together. This also shows a strong sense of love and affection he has for him. Because his father’s breath reeked of whiskey, it was hard for them to waltz with ease. Also, the poet somewhat describes pain in way as well when he uses the words “battered” and “scraped” in the third stanza. He uses these word battered because he's describing that his father’s hands as worn out and beat up because he probably works really hard at his job which requires a lot of labor and the description of that word shows the reader that he works hard at what he does. With the word scraped, this shows pain because when the poet and his father waltz, his right ear scraped because his father was drunk on the whiskey and it made him a little dizzy and the poet most likely hit something which scraped his ear. The poet also uses the word “romped”; this describes that the son and the father are having fun together waltzing even though they are being careless as they are bumping into the pots and pans in the kitchen which annoys the mother as described in the second stanza in the last two lines.

Furthermore, the analysis of the third stanza, relates to the fond memory. Roethke descriptively mentions, “The hand that held my wrist/Was battered on one knuckle;” The “battered knuckle” can be a sign of the father’s manual labor; on the contrary, it can be the beating of his child leaving his hand injured. Even though, these two points can be argued thoroughly, the following line, “At every step you missed/My right ear scraped a buckle.” supports the idea that the child could have been playing

The strongest literary device Roethke uses to convey the speaker’s relationship with his father is symbolism. The waltz symbolizes the way they interact when his father comes home drunk. The waltz also serves as an extended metaphor for the relationship the speaker has with his father, representing the difficult and scary bond the two have. When the speaker says “We romped until the pans... Slid from the kitchen shelf...” on lines six and seven, it becomes clear that this is not an ordinary dance, and that the father was abusing his son. On line three the speaker says “But I hung on like death”, this presents a scary and dangerous tone. He holds on to his father, like death, to represent that he isn’t going anywhere, similar to how death is inevitable, the father will not be able to get rid of his son. The speaker continues to hold on to his father, the audience can tell that although he is being hurt and he is scared, he still values his dad.

The controversial poem, “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 reminisce on a bittersweet memory with his father. His unclear commemoration has sparked a divide on what the true purpose of the poem is. Some may argue the poem’s purpose is to shine light on the subject of abuse, whereas others believe the father and son were sharing a moment while “roughly playing.” However, the more one examines this piece of literature, it becomes undeniable that the poem portrays a scene of a toxic father-son relationship. Although there are a

The speaker pinpoints in the first stanza that the waltz “was not easy,” and he “hung on like death,” making the reader question if this is actually a waltz he is describing (Roethke lines 3-4). The waltz is definitely not easy, however dances are supposed to be fun and this small boy is not having fun waltzing with his father. The language Roethke uses to describe the waltz and how he “hung on like death” suggests that the speaker is hanging on to his father because he does not want to let him go no matter what he is doing to him (Roethke line 3). The speaker states that he and his father “romped until the pans/ Slid from the kitchen shelf” suggesting that the speaker does not simply knock over pans awkwardly, but they romp “until” the pans fall from the kitchen shelf (Roethke lines 5-6). He implies that it is almost intention that the romping will not be over until the pans fall. The speaker also states that “the hand that held [his] wrist/ Was battered in

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.

Throughout the text there seem to have a particular roughness to the actions, for instance, the pans sliding off the shelf, the mother's countenance, which would not unfrown it self and the father's whiskey breath are all image that represents the hardships of life, for example, the father drink after a long hard day of manual labor. Although these images can be seen has child abuse if you take them out of the poems context. The child abuse angle is more evident in line 13 where the father beats time on the child's head because of the connotation to abuse the word "beat" involves. Due to the simple middle class language of the text, the phrase beat time is common use for counting time, thus the social context is important for the comprehension of this poem.

At first glance one might think that Roethke is talking about abuse, but as we further read we will soon be able to grasp the concept that Roethke is only describing the “waltz” with vivid language. The author uses the word “romped” which means to play roughly and energetically to detail how him and his father waltzed “ until the pans slid from the shelf.” Additionally, Roethke uses the phrase “But I hung on like death” to describe that as a small child who only reaches his father’s waist it was quite hard to hold on as they “romped” around. Roethke chooses to describe the mother’s facial expression as a “ countenance” who could not “ unfrown itself” due to the fact that she was happy to see her boys romping around but was disappointed to find that her “kitchen pans” had been dropped after she might have just organized them.  For those reasons, when analyzing the diction in “My Papa’s Waltz” it is essential to look at the denotation of his words to be able to find the true meaning of his poem.

However, the meaning of the expression can also illustrate her disappointment that the father and son are creating a mess in the kitchen late at night. Finally, the lines “At every step you missed / My right ear scraped a buckle” (ll 11-12) proves to be the most violent line of the entire poem as it creates a picture of the father holding a belt to beat his son. However, due to his drunkenness, he misses his son, thereby scraping his ear with the buckle of the belt. As convincing as this interpretation sounds to be, the scraping of the ear by the belt buckle could show that the boy is hugging his father so tightly that while they are “waltzing”, the son’s ear scrapes a buckle when the father misses his step.

This stanza also provides the reader with the feeling of how aggressive this dance may be. Roethke is apparently referring to his father's belt buckle in the last line of the third stanza. During an aggressive act such as this, a small child would experience pain from such a man's belt buckle "scraping" across his ear in this fashion, yet the child refrains from any type of resistance. Perhaps this is caused by the child's fear that his father will become angry, so the child simply endures the pain and tries to enjoy the moment, for he may also feel love and attention that he may not receive regularly from his father.

Roethke uses iambic trimeter throughout the entirety of the poem to accentuate the very smooth and rhythmic characteristics of a waltz. Not to mention that trimeter and a waltz are both in groups of three. In addition, the meter and rhyme both stay consistent throughout the entire piece. However, the light and dance-like attitude are changed with the contrasting diction. The use of words such as “death,” “battered,” and “beat” drastically changes the meaning of the poem. Due to this hints of violence, this strong contrast, makes the piece very difficult to understand and much less straight-forward. In fact, there are many different interpretations of the text depending on what aspect is focused on. If one focuses on the diction and connotations of the words you’d conclude that the poem is only about abuse, yet if you focus on the rhythm, you’d find it’s a very happy reflection on the narrator’s time with his/her father. In reality, it is more