Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” can safely be interpreted in at least two ways. On one hand, it is a poem about a young boy dancing with his father around the family kitchen. The dance is more reckless than graceful and there seem to be a few minor injuries that occur during this dancing. However, it is still a seemingly cheerful experience and any injuries that might occur are merely accidents. On the other hand, this poem can also be seen as one about abuse. The “dance” that the father and son are partaking in is actually a metaphor for the father abusing the young boy. The reason this poem can be seen in both a positive and negative light is because of the mention of alcohol, the mention of beating, and the mother. The mention of alcohol comes from the first line of the poem when Roethke writes, “The whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy” (1). This line shows two sides, both a positive and a negative. On one side this seems to be about a father who has simply drunk a bit of whiskey. There is not a …show more content…
It is difficult to tell if she is upset simply because her husband and son are roughhousing in her kitchen or if she is upset as a result of the father beating the son. Roethke writes, “My mother’s countenance/ Could not unfrown itself” (7-8). On one hand, the mother is simply getting upset due to her family dancing around the kitchen. After all, Roethke writes, “We romped until the pans/ Slid from the kitchen shelf” (5-6). This is another moment in the poem where one could interpret it in either a negative or a positive way. The mother could be upset simply as a result of the dancing causing items in her kitchen to fall down, but she could also be upset since the father’s abuse towards her child is so intense that it is causing the pans to fall off of the shelf. Once again, Roethke has set up this poem where it is almost impossible to tell if he means for this moment to be abusive or
In his recollection, Roethke's father comes home drunk after a hard day of work. The young boy and his father decide to partake in a little dance. While waltzing, the two get a little rambunctious with each other. As a result, some people view this poem with a disdainful-like perception and suppose Theodore wrote the poem with dark thoughts in mind. Rather, despite his father's drunkenness, the young Theodore enjoyed every second of it.
In the poem "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke, the speaker is reflecting on a childhood experience involving his father. Through diction and details, the speaker conveys his complex attitudes toward his father. When first read it, it appears the young boy is afraid of his father. The first line of the poem writes: "The whiskey on your breath; could make a small boy dizzy." Apparently, the father likes whisky and the smell of it is remaining on his person, which causes the young boy's aversion. The diction of "dizzy" depicts the young boy is getting overwhelmed by the smell of the drink. Imagine how a little child feels when he notices the strange smell of his parent, He feels weak or even scared. That is exactly what the young boy feels when he saw his drunken father with the distasteful smell. The poem then goes on saying: "but I hung on like death, such waltzing was not easy." This simile compares the fear of the boy to the death. To have a feeling of death is not a pleasant feeling, therefore when they started "waltzing"; the young boy thinks it is "not easy." This shows that ...
"We romped until the pans / Slid from the kitchen shelf" (5-6). In numerous poems different readers vista a variety of ways to interpret what poems actually mean. This is very much true in Theodore Roethke's poem "My Papa's Waltz." The quote mentioned has caused many misconceptions about what the poem; "My Papa's Waltz" actually refers to. The two superior interpretations of critics are that Roethke's poem describes abuse or a dance. The abuse seems much more apparent in "My Papa's Waltz" because of the language that Roethke uses. The dance is interpreted because the boy is innocent and knows nothing else therefore the abuse seems normal. The drunkenness of his Papa, the mother's ignorance, and the way the child describes his abuse are very clear interpretations of mistreatment in Theodore Roethke's poem "My Papa's Waltz."
On the other hand, the diction and imagery of “waltzing” in line 4 creates a soft and sweet image of a father and child dancing. The image of “My right ear scraped a buckle / You beat time on my head” (line 12-13) seems violent and rough at first, but with Roethke’s delightful transition into “Then waltzed me off to bed / Still clinging to your shirt” (line 15-16) depicts a small child being put to bed but still wanting to spend time with their father. “Daddy” contains allusions to World War 2 with images of a swastika in the sky (line 46-47) and references to German concentration camps, “A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen” (line 33). She states her father clearly to be a German man with “I thought every German was you” (line 29), “with your Luftwaffe” (line 42), “And your Aryan eye, bright blue” (line 44). Plath alludes to the popular anti-Semitism of her era in Germany depicted in lines 31-40.
Today, people tend to believe that hitting a person is abuse. Although, many people can connect with ¨My Papaś Waltz¨ by Theodore Roethke, the intended audience is himself illustrating a past memory of his childhood. The controversy of the poem is whether itś a good or bad memory. While the subject of “My Papa’s Waltz” has spurred a passionate academic debate from professors, scholars, and students alike, the imagery, syntax, and diction of the poem clearly supports the interpretation that Theodore Roethke wrote “My Papa’s Waltz” to illustrate on a past memory of his drunk and abusive father.
“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 poem opens with a son talking about his father’s alcoholism, describing that the amount of whiskey his father drank “could make a small boy dizzy” (Roethke) with the effects of alcohol. The figurative dance with addiction is not easy for the boy, but he still “hung on like death” (Roethke), hoping for a brighter outcome. The father and son are in the kitchen, where the amount of the father’s drunken, physical abuse on the child causes pans to fall from kitchen shelves (Roethke). The boy’s mother, however, can only stand to the side and watch the events unfold with a “countenance [that] could not unfrown itself” (Roethke). The boy’s father grabs him by the wrist with a “battered...knuckle” (Roethke). With this interpretation in mind, the cause of the father’s rough hands becomes unclear. His hands could still be rough from a hard day of work, or perhaps his abusive nature has ended with injuries on his hands. The amount of alcohol consumed by the father causes him to stumble, or miss steps, according to the speaker. As the physical abuse continues, the child states he is “still clinging to [his father’s] shirt” (Roethke). This last line hints that, although the father is an abusive drunk, the child still loves his father and clings to this love with the hope that someday things will improve for his
Notably, the denotation “romping” can mean, “to play roughly and energetically” (Google), but it can also have a connotation that the boy is hurt or in pain. Furthermore, stanza two also mentions the “mother’s countenance/ could not unfrown itself” (7- 8) which is unusual in the description of playing. While the father and son are playing, the mother is standing aside frowning. Her unhappiness contrasts the playful description of the waltz, which gives the poem its sense of seriousness. In other words, it tells the reader that there is much more happening here than the father and son playing. The drunkenness of the father has caused him to become careless and rough with the boy. The mother is clearly unhappy about the situation, but only watches as the two continue their
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 like death: Such waltzing was not easy (Roethke)” The word death is not what people usually think but nobody can shake or get away from death. So the boy was holding on to his father where his father could not get away from him like the boy did not want him to go. “We romped until the pans Slid from the kitchen shelf (Roethke)” another word to understand is romped. The word romped means to play or frolic in a lively or boisterous manner. To go deeper in the definition boisterous means rough and noisy. While the father and the son are playing around dancing they are also messing up the house as well. Messing up the kitchen will make any mother mad and that is what happens next. Of out any other place in the house the kitchen is the woman’s throne room. “The hand that held my wrist was battered on one knuckle; at every step you missed my right ear scraped a buckle (Roethke).” In lines 9-12 you can tell that the father has came back from a long day of work. The father’s job has to be doing something wi...
" Certainly, this small boy's family life has its frightening side, but the last line suggests the boy is still clinging to his father with persistent if also complicated love" (Kennedy and Gioia 668). Although their dance appears to be "comic", Roethke seems to possess "an odd and ambivalent closeness" to his apparently intoxicated father (Balakian 62). Still, even more evidence of these mixed feelings is illustrated in the third stanza. "This love dance, a kind of blood rite between father and son, shows suppressed terror combined with awe-inspired dependency" (Balakian 62).
“My Papa’s Waltz” is a poem written by Theodore Roethke describing a son’s memory of his drunken father. At the start of the poem, one might assume that it is a poem about how the father beats the son, but it does not specifically say that it is about domestic violence. It simply states that the father was drunk and that he and his son were “waltzing” around the house. To some, the act of “waltzing” is an act of love, despite the father being drunk. To others, it could mean that the father was abusive and was harming his son. As one continues reading the poem, one might question whether the poem is about violence at all.
The dishes have been cleared and placed on the counter or in the sink. The family is seated around the table. The father having a glass of whiskey to relax after a very hard day working in the family owned twenty-five-acre greenhouse complex. He is asked to take his small son to bed. The poem begins, “The whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy” (Roethke line 1) enlists the imagery of what the young boy was smelling as he most likely climbed aboard his fathers’ large work boots for the evening waltz to bed.
In the late nineteen forties, Theodore Roethke emerged with a poem that has been the source of much debate. "My Papa's Waltz," is an account of a relationship between son and father. Alas, many readers who are exposed to this piece fail to note the love present in the connection of the characters. In an attempt to illuminate the author's true intention several factors must be examined. After several examinations of Roethke's poem as well as learning of his childhood it is evident that this poem does not suggest an abusive environment, but is an appreciative account of the love and playfulness between the characters. Therefore, a successful interpretation of this poem will look beyond the four stanzas and study not only the history of the writing, but the life of the poet.
Many people with a history of abusive relationships would be quick to tell that this story is about an abusive father, however, with the right context, this does not seem to be the case. Instead of looking at the poem in an abusive light, the reader could also see it as a fond memory of dancing with their father in the kitchen. Just because the father’s breath smells of whiskey does not mean he has a history with alcoholism, whiskey just happens to be incredibly strong and can be the first thing one notices about a person. Instead of the father beating his child, it could be about him literally waltzing his son around the kitchen, without a care in the world. “We romped until the pans / Slid from the kitchen shelf” (5-6).
One of the ways Roethke has described the abusive relationship is through the use of verbs. To set the stage of the night, Roethke starts off the poem by saying, “The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy;” (line 1-2), which implies that his father has drank a lot. Roethke has used several verbs in the poem to describe what is going on, which give off a very violent vibe. Roethke used, “hung”, “held”, “scraped”, “beat”, and “clinging” to show us the abuse he suffered. The order in which the verbs have been positioned is interesting too. It is Roethke who “hung” on to his father, “scraped” his