My Papa's Waltz Summary

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Theodore Roethke along with many other types of writers seem to love encrypting messeges within their own poetry. In “My Papa’s Waltz” Theodore does just this by using the obvious that the father is a drunk and sliding in a messege that shows the poem from a different perspective almost. In the beginning of the story you would assume maybe the father is the antagonist of the story but Theodore shines light on the father that ultimately makes him the protagonist. In the text spoken through the son, Theodore shares the picture of a child abused by his father, but gives the father a pass almost to were everything he does was still seen as okay or normal to the son. Although very short in length this poem actually has a good amount to talk about. …show more content…

This passage gives you the picture that maybe the father is beating the child because they are knocking over pans of the shelves and the mother is not happy at all. Looking at this same passage though and reading it through the eyes of the son Theodore makes it seem as if the son thinks they are playing. Yes, the moter is unhappy but maybe that’s because they are knocking over pans and the little boy just thinks they are rough housing. The illusion of the actual “Waltz” remains throughout the whole poem still. At the end Theodore says, “You beat time on my head”. This passage again shows that the son still is looking at it as a dance the father keeping a time or metronome for the …show more content…

He doesn’t stick to one many voice the whole time he switches it up a lot to help get his points across. For example in the beginning of the poem he states, “The wisky on your breath could make a young boy dizzy; but I hung on like death: such waltzing is not easy”. In this sentence alone he switches from “young boy” to “I” in the second sentence. I believe he did this to further show that the boy does not believe he was being beaten. He seemed to say young boy as if it wasn’t the son because the son is still denying the fact that they aren’t just playing. Then the son come back to reality and realizes that he is the one hanging on for dear life and they aren’t just playing a game. The last two lines of this poem are kind of like the final thoughts by the son that his dad still loves him. He says, “Then waltzed me off to bed still clinging to your shirt”. As you can see, the son still looks at this as a dance as if the father as just been playing with this whole time. Now the father and son are no long playing and since he is all tuckered out the dad is being nice and carrying the son to

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