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. For example, his use of negative imagery suggest that he has a drunk father. Hence in the first two lines of the poem. “ The whiskey on your breath …show more content…
He uses the words like “battered” and “scraped” to give the poem a dark and serious tone. In fact, he uses the words “countenance” and “unfrown” in the line “ My mother’s countenance could not unfrown itself.” to illustrate how upset his mother is. In addition, he used the word “death” to illustrate in the line “ But I hung on like death.” that he is holding onto his father, with no plan to let go. To hold on like “death” his father would have to be moving excessively for him to hold on that tight. We can insist from the last two lines of the first and second stanza that he is hitting one of them. With this you can conclude that his father is abusive. Ultimately, the subject of “ My Papa’s Waltz” has spurred a passionate academic debate from professors, scholars, and students alike, the imagery, syntax, diction of the poem clearly support the interpretation that Theodore Roethke wrote “ My Papa’s Waltz” to illustrate on a past memory of his drunk and abusive father. The controversy of the poem itself is whether it is a good or bad memory. The use of negative imagery, syntax, and diction support this. Overall, with the explanation of the poem and the use of syntax, diction and imagery “ My Papa’s Waltz” was about Theodore Roethke’s drunk and abusive
Theodore Roethke's poem “My Papa's Waltz” is a unique American poem which is written in iambic trimeter. The poem captures the sometimes intense relationship between father and son. Roethke's own father, a German immigrant, died when he was still a teenager. His father was a major inspiration in his life and images from his childhood appear throughout his poetry. A biographer, Matt Forster comments that “His poems are often explorations of his own psyche, using imagery from his childhood to describe his interior life (Forster 2005).” He became one of the best known American poets by the end of his lifetime in 1963. In the famous poem “My Papa's Waltz” the author uses musicality and deep psychologically-rooted themes to create a poem that is unforgettable and alive with action. The poem is composed in iambic trimeter which parallels the 1, 2, 3 tempo of a waltz. This feature helps in creating the illusion of musicality and dancing as is suggested in the poem's title. Thematically the poem comments on the oedipal complex, the intimate relationship between father and son, loss, memory and music.
The purpose of this essay is to analyze and compare and contrast the two paired poems “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning and “My Ex-Husband” by Gabriel Spera to find the similarities presented within the pairs. Despite the monumental time difference between “My Last Duchess” and “My Ex-Husband”, throughout both poems you will see that somebody is wronged by someone they thought was a respectable person and this all comes about by viewing a painting on the wall or picture on a shelf.
"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.
The abuse of a child tarnishes parents, permanently damages the parent-child relationship, and is completely gratuitous. Everyone has a father and has their own personal feelings towards their father. For some, these experiences are those of affection and gratefulness, however, for others this may be anger and resentment. It is easy to project these experiences onto the poem “My Papa’s Waltz” (Roethke) as the poem is a son’s reminiscence of “waltzing” with his father as a young boy. Furthermore, because the narrator seems isolated, the reader’s perceptions vary throughout the poem. Readers believe it to be a cheerful childhood memory, while another may contend it to be a disclosure of childhood abuse, nevertheless, “My Papa’s Waltz (Roethke)” confirms both perspectives and displays the narrator’s emotions through a poetic tone.
Childhood experiences seem to be the ones that are recollected most vividly throughout a person's life. Almost everyone can remember some aspect of his or her childhood experiences, pleasant and unpleasant alike. Theodore Roethke's poem "My Papa's Waltz" suggests even further that this concept could be true. The dance described in this poem illustrates an interaction between father and child that contains more than the expected joyous, loving attitude between the two characters. Roethke's tone in this work exhibits the blended, yet powerful emotions that he, as a grown man, feels when looking back on this childhood experience. The author somewhat implicates feelings of resentment fused with a loving reliance with his father.
Indeed, the satirical tone of this poem suggests that the speaker is somewhat critical of his father. The whiskey smell, the roughness, the inconsiderate and reckless actions are under scrutiny. The mother's frowning countenance suggests she too is rather unhappy with the scene. However, the winning tone of the poem is the light and comical one.
Not only the words, but the figures of speech and other such elements are important to analyzing the poem. Alliteration is seen throughout the entire poem, as in lines one through four, and seven through eight. The alliteration in one through four (whisky, waltzing, was) flows nicely, contrasting to the negativity of the first stanza, while seven through eight (countenance, could) sound unpleasing to the ear, emphasizing the mother’s disapproval. The imagery of the father beating time on the child’s head with his palm sounds harmful, as well as the image of the father’s bruised hands holding the child’s wrists. It portrays the dad as having an ultimate power over the child, instead of holding his hands, he grabs his wrists.
Alcoholics have a tendency to damage everything they come in contact with. In the poem “My Papa's Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, the speaker is constantly stepped on and overpowered by his abusive alcoholic father, leaving him helpless and unable to defend himself. Roethke constructs metaphors and rough imagery to emphasize and connect with the reader his emotions towards his abusive relationship his father forces him to participate in every night.
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.
The opening lines of the poem are more shocking than the grimness of the detail because they illustrate the bleak mood of the hero. He is distrustful "My first thought was, he lied in every word" and bitter: "That hoary cripple, with malicious eye". His despair and paranoia become evident in the inconsistency of his thought: if the man was lying about where to find
Everyone sees the world according to his or her own experiences. In the same way, poetry can be read and understood according to the experiences of the reader. Theodore Roethke, a poet-in-residence at the University of Washington, who was educated at both Harvard and Michigan University, wrote a poem titled “My Papa’s Waltz”. When reading My Papa’s Waltz, readers tend to have the perspective that the poem was either about a father who was abusive, or simply a happy memory of a father rough-housing his son. After analysis, the strongest evidence in the diction and the tone conveys that the poem is about the confusion a son feels over the drunken abusive behavior exhibited by his father.
looks at the time and how the poet's father has lack of control of the
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
Theodore Roethke was a famous poet in mid-century America. He was born in Michigan to Helen and Otto Roethke. While growing up his family depended on his father’s greenhouse that the family owned. His father loved to do anything that had to do with the outdoors. He spent many hours of his life working outside planting plants in the greenhouse. Roethke viewed his father as a stern man, who was serious almost all the time. So, when he wrote the poem “My Papa Waltz”, it was probably one of the few memories he had of his father dancing and acting silly. Theodore Roethke used psychoanalytic critism when he wrote “My Papa’s Waltz”, he looked back on an old childhood memory and wrote about it from his adult point of view. Most of Roethke’s poems used themes that contained power and vision. He also liked to emphasize on rhythm throughout his poems. In the poem “My Papa’s Waltz” he used an A, B, A, B rhyme scheme. The poem has a rhythm that goes smoothly with their “waltz”. Theodore Roethke uses imagery, symbolism, and metaphor in his poem “My Papa’s Waltz” to show the relationship between a father and son, it also
Looking back on past events can cause one to realize their insignificance. At one moment that event may seem as if it is the only thing that matters, and in the next it is trivial. If reality sets in, the event can pass, or a trivial grudge is held without end. In The Rape of the Lock, Alexander Pope makes light of such a situation. Using mock-epic poetry, Pope is able to use contrasting situations to show the insignificance of some events (Brown 4).