Throughout the readings of “Eveline” and “My Papa’s Waltz” we can see correlations between family household issues that effect children. Unfortunately I can relate to these readings due to obstacles I’ve dealt with over the past several years with my father. These events throughout my life have affected me directly through depression and indirectly as I grow up. Family households who have abusive parents are at risk of negative impacts on the family’s well being. These negative impacts include stress and depression among individuals in the home, strain and aggression rubbing off onto the family, and health related issues amongst selected family members.
During my reading of the short story “Eveline” the main character Eveline has to choose
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While reading “My Papa’s Waltz” I concluded that the father was a drunk that paid little attention to how his actions were affecting his son. In the first two lines of the poem it says, “The whiskey on your breath/ Could make a small boy dizzy,” (Roethke 1-2) possibly implying that the strong smell of the whiskey is making his son feel dizzy. We can tell his son has become scared to death when the poem says “But I hung on like death.” (Roethke 3) Using the word “death” indicates that these memories aren’t so happy for him. The “waltz” itself seems to be a metaphor implying a conflict between love and fear towards the father. According to a research article done by informa healthcare, “ The effect of living with a close relative who has an alcohol or drug problem was conceptualized as involving four interlocking facets: the stress family members have been under as a result of the difficulties encountered; the threat to the family and home that excessive substance use poses; the worry that is engendered concerning oneself, children, home, family and the relative; and the consequent strain which family members show in the form of personal upset, distress, and impaired mental and physical health.” We can clearly see that his son feels threatened and the mother is stressed and upset because their waltzing in the kitchen has caused a …show more content…
My father always had low patience and never handled much of anything very well. Growing up, if I had conflict with my friends, boys, school, most anything, he would never want to hear about it and it became very hard for me. My parents were divorced and while at my father’s house, I had no one to comfort me. There were several times my father’s low patience caused him to lash out on my brother and I physically and verbally. This made it very difficult for me to have a good relationship with my dad. I always hid everything because I was afraid to talk to him about anything happening in my life. Come to find out my dad had several underlying issues that would cause him to drink alcohol everyday. The alcohol is what made him more aggressive, less patient, and made him very ill. Being that my father was an aggressive drunk I could have made the decisions to move in with my mom and forget about my father but something deep down in my heart told me to do so otherwise, just as Eveline did. My father needed help and I knew he wouldn’t be able to do it on his own. The first two times I had him omit himself into the hospital to try and get into a program, he failed. He didn’t have the will power to realize he needed help. I still continued to live with him and my mother off and on as normal but it was destroying me on the inside. I was
Inevitability at one point in most of our lives we have to deal with some type of hardship. A lot of us have experienced first hand or known someone who has had the unfortunate experience of dealing with a close friend or family member who becomes abusive and aggressive because of drug or alcohol related problems. My Papa’s waltz is a poem that tells the story of a young boy dealing with an abusive father and a broken home. Despite the initial light atmosphere of the poem Theodore Roethke uses strong and powerful language to convey an underlined meaning to their dance. My Papa's Waltz is a poem of fear, all the more horrible because the boy is terrified and hurt by his father, even in play, yet he clings and hangs to him showing how strong he is despite his age and through his actions he illustrates his love and patience for his troubled father.
In the poem “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, the speaker is reflecting on a childhood experience involving his father. Some people assume that this poem is about a happy relationship between a father and son while other people assume that this poem emphasizes hidden messages of parental abuse. In my
“My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke is a representation of the journey toward reconciliation of the love and the fear that the speaker, a young boy, has for his father, and is an extended metaphor for the way that we balance the good and bad in our lives. Whilst reading this poem it is impossible to determine definitively whether it is truly about a dance or if the speaker is actually being abused. However, I don’t believe that it really matters either way. Actually, I believe it is this ambiguity and push and pull between the two extremes that creates the overall sense of struggle that comes with the reconciliation of the facets of the father and son’s relationship. This dance between love and fear is accentuated by Roethke’s use of ambiguous diction, end rhyme, and iambic trimeter.
The first poem, "My Papa's Waltz," by Theodore Roethke (Page 18) presents a clear picture of the young man's father, from line one. "Whiskey" on the father's breath is one of many clues in appearance that mold a rough image of this uneducated, blue-collar worker, possibly a European immigrant, as indicated by the "Waltz" in the title (Line 1). These traits are not necessarily related. They merely exist at once in the father's character. Additional signs of roughness are his hand, "battered on one knuckle"(11), and "a palm caked hard by dirt"(14). This is a man who has probably known only grueling labor. His few escapes likely consist of a drink or two when he gets home from a tough day and maybe something good on the radio. This idea of the father as an unrefined oaf is further reinforced by his actions. His missed steps injure the child's ear, while the father and son's "romping" causes the pans to slide "from the kitchen shelf"(6). As he "beat[s] time"(13) on the child's head we see very clearly that he is quite brutish and careless with the child, and oblivious to his environment. All these factors make the boy's mother very uncomfortable. We can see the disapproval in her countenance, which "could not unfrown itself"(8). She is obviously upset but, strangely, does nothing to interfere with the horseplay that grieves her. This suggests that the waltz is enjoyable for not only one, but both parties. One might wonder why it is that the boy so delights in these moments. This is obviously a crude, boorish man. He probably doesn't flush. He may even smell bad. Are these reasons to love one's father less? Certainly not in the eyes of a small boy. This young man's father may not be the most sensitive or perceptive man around, but he still seems to be a hero in the eyes of his son. Finally, the son recalls these words: "Then you waltzed me off to bed/ Still clinging to your shirt"(16). After reading this poem, it is clear just how unconditional a child's love is.
If the narrator simply intended to reflect a warm commemoration, he could have used a strand of words that implied happiness or comfort. The author was clearly aware that at first glance, readers typically assume the poem is about an abusive relationship; nevertheless, he neglected to alter his poem, demonstrating the idea that negative memories of the father do exist. The father in “My Papa’s Waltz” is portrayed by the narrator as one who neglects his responsibilities of ensuring safety and being a positive role model. Using many examples and implying this through writing techniques, the narrator represents the father in a way other than a loving dad.
My Papa’s Waltz presents a child’s telling of the waltz taking place between him and his father. As a verb, a waltz is “to move or walk in a lively and confident manner” (“Waltz”). The waltz described throughout the poem is quick and lively as the boy “hung on like death” (Roethke)
"My Papa 's Waltz," by Theodore Roethke 's, is a poem about a boy who expresses his affection for his father, but at the same time expresses a sense of danger that comes from the father. The poem appears to be a snapshot in time from a child’s memory. The uplifting experience is created through the father and son’s waltz while the father’s uncontrollable movements juxtaposes the menace of the drunken father.
I never fully grasped the idea of how addiction is a disease, so there has honestly been so many times when I thought I hated him. I would get so upset with him for doing things that were out of his control; stealing from us, causing us so much grief and sadness, and emotionally scarring me. I put up the thickest and strongest walls around myself so that he would not hurt me any more. I was so selfish; I blocked him out so that I wouldn’t get hurt, instead of being there to help him. I held a grudge for so long. Till the last day I saw him, I held a grudge for stressing mom and dad out, for not being the big brother that I wanted him to be, for choosing the drugs when I needed him to choose his
“My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke is a very popular poem, written in 1948. The poem is an example of iambic trimeter and it is made up of four quatrains. The subjects of the poem include the small boy,who is the speaker, the father, and the mother for a brief line. According to Gioia and Kennedy, many people believe that Roethke uses the poem to showcase his attitude towards his father. The theme that is apparent in the poem would be centered around family dynamics and how alcoholism plays a role in those dynamics.
Theodore Roethke is one of the most accomplished and influential American poets. He has published various volumes of award-winning and critically acclaimed poetry. One of his affluent poems is “My Papa’s Waltz” which was published in 1948. The poem depicts an image of a young boy waltzing with his intoxicated father. The voice of the persona in the poem contributes to the poem’s effectiveness since it is told from the young boy’s perspective. He is indirectly expressing his feelings regarding his father’s lifestyle. To summarize, the father had too much whiskey and began to waltz around the around the kitchen with his son. The waltz was extremely clumsy as the son kept scraping his ear on his father’s belt buckle. After the shenanigans, the young boy’s father waltzed him off to bed. Therefore, the theme of “My Papa’s Waltz” is the young boy’s reminiscent of his father’s alcoholism.
My Papa’s Waltz has been compared to a generational litmus test. Depending on what generation the reader was born, could determine how the reader would interpret this poem. Each generation has its own views that have been developed in them for the language used to describe Papa in this poem. The whiskey on his breath and Papa’s hand beating on his head, both sound like a negative connotation. Depending on the experience of the reader, they can either be disturbed by these words or be drawn in closer to the poem. Theodore Roethke loved his father. Not only did he love him, but he idolized him and unfortunately lost him at an early age. This poem is a reflective memorial waltz written in iambic trimeter to honor his father and mother.
“My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke is a poem that illustrates the love and bonding between a father and child through structure, figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and diction. The poem begins with lines making it seem negative, violent, and maybe even hate. However it was really his use of figurative language to show them bonding and having fun. In the first quatrain it says the father has whiskey breath, enough to make a child dizzy, so the child hangs on like “death”, because it was hard for him to waltz. At a first glance this may seem negative because of the whiskey and the author's choice of words like death. Although it is not negative. The father may have had a whiskey breath but it doesn't state he was drunk, and him hanging on like death may sound horrific, but he has to hold on to him so he is inescapable as death because it is
A waltz is a dance, a beautiful two person dance. A waltz in someone's life can be a situation there struggling with or a person they're having a difficult time with. I've gone through times where my waltz is easy and others where I felt I count quite finish it the way I wanted; in line 3-4 it says ¨but I hung on like death: such waltzing was not easy. ¨ this suggests that the boy in the poem is struggling with his father and every person involved or from an outside perspective has a contrasting attitude towards it. A recent struggle i've had was in my relationship with my ex boyfriend.
“My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke can be interpreted in a few different ways. The most obvious one being that he was dancing around with his father, having so much fun that he did not want to stop. His father is very drunk though, which leads us to believe that it is no just a fun story of him and his father dancing one night. What Roethke is really trying to show us, is the abusive relationship he had with his father.
...s and was generally abusive to almost everyone around him. He was a tough guy to get along with and he and I had our own problems throughout the years. In the end Phillip decided to go into the military to get away from his parents. The military straightened Philip up and when he came back his parents were actually very proud of him. His dad eventually got cleaned up too and things have never been better for Phillip.