My Papas Waltz By Theodore Roethke

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Noora Bakhashwain ENWR 1102 03/03/2014 The Hidden “Violent Relationship” The beauty of Theodore Roethke’s poem, “My papa’s waltz” is its ability to manipulate the reader about the reality of a broken relationship. The deception within the story is about a father, his son, and an absent mother. Roethke allows the complexity of the poem to be perceived depending on the reader’s emotions and psyche. The central and most important metaphor in the poem is the description of the beating as a dance; the waltz. The severity of the violence is lessened. The association of dance gives the reader more time to adjust to the harsh truth. Roethke’s father was an immigrant and a drunk, who appears to forcibly have his way with his son while their mother stands aside unable to “unfrown” herself. The poem …show more content…

Links between child-abuse and alcoholism are documented and studied upon, while back when the poem was written in 1948 the terms were unheard of and never seen as true. Child abuse was far from public knowledge and not many children were aware of the possibility that their parents could in fact abuse their right as the parent to care for the child rather than beat and/ or molest the child. Although the memory of waltzing with the father seems to be in positive light, it has a vague and frightening light to it. Children in general, are most often easy to convince that something so frightening can actually be thrilling. The power of the child’s father is overpowering; “the hand that held my wrist”, “clinging to your shirt” portraying that the fathers strength cannot be resisted and is forced on the child because he is held by his wrist and not by the child’s hands (which would seem that he did so willingly). The child does not wish to resist and unfortunately seeks his father’s affection to go “to bed”, which could unfortunately mean that his father would beat until he was

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