Everyone has memories about the past in which they can remember a certain taste, smell, or feeling that brings joy. The speaker in “My Papa’s Waltz,” by Theodore Roethke is reminiscing about his father in what used to be a joyful moment but is now a haunting memory. This poem is frequently analyzed due to it’s meaning that continues to be relevant after sixty-eight years. It can be seen as a happy poem about a father and a son, but the diction and metaphors used lead to its serious and sad implication. “My Papa’s Waltz,” is a narrative poem written in a lyrical way using rhythm and beat. The speaker tells a story about a joyful memory between a father and son that has an unfortunate connotation. Behavior in family relationships is not always what is seems to be because the speaker realizes the truth behind the moments he had with his father.
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The stanza says, “The hand that held my wrist was battered on one knuckle at every step you missed my right ear scraped a buckle” (9-12). This shows that the child was so young that his ear only reached to his father buckle. This is also a fierce connotation for the father missing every step or making a mistake in the child’s life and this caused pain for the child. Every time the father misses a step and the buckle hits the boy’s ear, he is hurting his son. The use of the word batter in these lines is very important. According to Merriam Webster dictionary battered means “to beat with successive blows so as to bruise, shatter, or demolish” (Merriam Webster). The strong diction used sets up an image of a bruised and bloody hand. The father’s battered hand is the result of the amount that the father would abuse his son. This stanza also shows a shift in the poem. The reader is taken from an image of the father and son romping and causing chaos in the kitchen, to the son being held by his wrist while being physically and emotionally hurt by his
The most notable qualities of Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” are the tone and language of the poem which convey the nostalgia adult author feels thinking about the time spent with his father. In the title narrator’s father is affectionately referred to as “Papa” making the impression that the main character and his father are close. The use of possessive pronoun “my” contributes to the overall impression that the father holds special place in the narrator’s heart. As word “waltz” in the title implies the poem gives account of the festive occasion in which the narrator’s father takes part.
The events of our childhood and interactions with our parents is an outline of our views as parents ourselves. Although Robert Hayden’s relationship with his father differentiates from the relationship of Theodore Roethke and his father, they are both pondering back to their childhood and expressing the events in a poem. “My Papa’s Waltz” and “Those winter Sundays” provide the reader with an image of a childhood event which states how fathers are being viewed by their children. These poems reflect upon the relationship of the father and child when the child was a youth. Both Roethke and Hayden both indicate that their fathers weren’t perfect although they look back admiringly at their fathers’ actions. To most individuals, a father is a man that spends time with and takes care of them which gains him love and respect. An episode of Roethke’s childhood is illustrated in “My Papa’s Waltz”. In “My Papa’s Waltz”, the father comes home showing signs of alcohol and then begins waltzing with his son. Roethke states that the father’s hands are “battered on one knuckle”. The mother was so upset about the dancing that she did nothing other than frown. At the end of the day, the father waltzed the son to bed. “Those Winter Sundays” is based on a regular Sunday morning. The father rises early to wake his family and warm the house. To warm the house, he goes out in the cold and splits wood to start a fire. This is a poem about an older boy looking back to his childhood and regretting that “No one ever thanked him.” In Those Winter Sundays'; by Robert Hayden, the poet also relinquishes on a regular occurrence in his childhood. On Sunday mornings, just as any other morning, his father rises early and puts on his clothes in the cold darkness. He ...
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 ...
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.
The first line in the poem introduces the fact that the father has been drinking whiskey. Now, most of us know that people have different reactions to alcohol. Some people are funny and like to have a good time, others become pretty mean. Which category the father falls in is hotly debated, however, most agree that the father’s drinking is the catalyst for the events in the rest of the poem be it waltzing or beating. Then comes the line, “But I hung on like death.” This is an incredibly powerful simile. Death has a negative connotation and adds a darkness to the piece as well as creating some very strong and powerful imagery. Also in the vein of imagery, the description of the father’s hands as “battered on one knuckle,” and “palm caked hard by dirt,” are very descriptive. His hands’ knuckles could be battered (which is an intense word that usually indicates some type of violence) from hitting and abusing the boy, or, in tandem with his hands being caked with dirt, just shows that his father is a hard
When one becomes a father, he undertakes many responsibilities: setting a positive example, enforcing discipline for misbehavior, overviewing the safety of his children, providing a loving atmosphere, and numerous other tasks. In Theodore Roethke’s poem, “My Papa’s Waltz,” the narrator reminisces on the memories of his “papa” through the metaphor of an aggressive “waltz.” Using descriptions of the father’s actions and the reactions of the mother, Roethke illustrates the situation with carefully selected vocabulary. These actions of the narrator’s “papa” can be interpreted as either positive and loving or as inappropriate and unnecessary. After a brief analysis of the poem, readers might assume that the narrator’s memories of his father reflect
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
"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.
Poetry is a special gift, which unfortunately is not given to all of us. Mr. Theodore Roethke (1908-1963) was an American poet with this magnificent gift. Mr. Roethke is regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential poets of his generation (Wiki). His poems present figurative language, which means that it says something, but is not actually what it means, or it can be interpreted in a totally different way. Theodore Roethke’s poem, “My Papa’s Waltz” has imaginary and mixed feelings between the speaker, which is a child, and his father. After having researched a lot more about the Poet’s life I find this poem highly eloquent and fallacious. Even though, it’s a brief poem I can say that this talks about Mr. Roethke’s childhood. This
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). "The hand that held my wrist/was battered on one knuckle;/ At every step you missed/ My right ear scraped a buckle"(Roethke 668). The speaker's father's hand being "battered on one knuckle" is indicative of a man who...
Along with “My Papa’s Waltz,” the poem uses the hands of the father figure to communicate more. In this poem, the father’s hands are described as “cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday.” The father’s hands reflect a certain level of pain or blue collared spirit which he works through the week and uses his day off on Sundays for the betterment of the family. The “blueblack” cold that is described conveys a scene of darkness, frostbite, or bruises and pain (Hayden 783). The bleakness of the weather translates into something not at rest or not at peace like the bleak and dead December in the “The Raven” by Edgar Allen Poe. The splintering, breaking of the cold reinforces the description of coldness felt within the house before the father warms it with the fire. Hayden also references the indifferent manner in which the speaker talks to the father and how the father seems to go unappreciated because “no one ever thanked him” for getting up early to warm the house (Hayden 783). The chronic angers associated with the house make the reoccurring disease and pain of the feeling of the house significant to the way the child feels when time is spent with the father in the house.
He states, “The hand that held my wrist was battered on one knuckle; at every step you missed my right ear scraped a buckle” (Roethke line 9-12). This could be could be taken as a symbolism for an abusive father. The hand that was battered on one knuckle could be seen as a hand that has been in a fight. The statement of missing a step and scrapping my ear on a buckle could be seen as imagery of abuse or being lifted up and the child not being able to control his steps and being drug along in a fearful manner.
Throughout the poem, Roethke hints subtly that his father and he dancing to a waltz was in fact a physical altercation. His use of vocabulary, including the words “romped” (5), “battered”(10), and “beat”(13) all suggest negative connotations, though Roethke still keeps an upbeat tone. Yet his rhyming scheme can be used in a lighthearted manner, Roethke’s command of language could be used as an illusion to deceive the reader. The innocence he portrays is an obvious indicator that he was not aware of the actual abuse taking place at the time, but he recognized it after the
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.
Have you ever felt regret about being selfish towards your parents or thankful for everything your parents have done for you? In the poems “My Papa’s Waltz”, by Theodor Roethke and “Those Winter Sundays”, by Hayden White both narrators have felt the same feelings towards their parents. Writing about childhood memories can be a great method of symbolizing emotional experiences of one’s childhood. Both poems are very similar themes. Each of the poems tell a story of a child who reminisce on their lives by telling about certain events that occurred during their childhood. Both poems are sentimental and emotional narratives of the boy’s relationship with their fathers. In “My Papa’s Waltz” the narrator uses specific imagery and words that are easy to understand, helping make the poem provide emotion. The poem “Those Winter Sundays” is much shorter but has a corresponding issue. The poem’s interpretation of meaning depends on reader’s point of view. Although both poems are very brief, they grasp an emotional outlook and values of relationships efficiently.