My Papa's Waltz By Theodore Roethke

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In "My Papa's Waltz”, by Theodore Roethke it shows a negative premonition. This poem is about a child being abused by his father that is intoxicated. It uses intelligible vocabulary that convinces the readers that it's about a child being abused. The speaker is a boy who is explaining a childhood experience that involves his father. He describes how he was being mistreated by his drunken father and how his dad covers it up by mentioning the term waltz which makes the readers believe that they're are dancing.
To begin with, in the first stanza the speaker states "The whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy" (1-2) that clarified that the father was drinking and his breath reeked. In addition to, "But I hung on like death such waltzing was not easy" (3-4) it seems as though the speaker was afraid to encounter his drunken father and having to dance with him which would be arduous because he's drunk. The second stanza starts with "We romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf” (5-6) the term "romp" …show more content…

For instance, “The hand that held my wrist was battered on one knuckle" (9-10) the word battered in line 10 is being used at a sadistic state and that can conduct the readers to think that the father grabbed the child's wrist vigorously. Then, the next two lines it states "At every step you missed my right ear scraped a buckle" (11-12) that can indicate that he used a belt to beat the child because the word buckle can be relevant to a belt. The fourth stanza says "You beat time on my head" (13) that can mean that the dad hit his son’s head several times. Furthermore, it reads "With a palm caked hard by dirt then waltzed me off to bed" (14-15) these two lines prove that the father was convincing himself and the reader that it's only a dance that leads to "Still clinging to your shirt" (16) that can imply that he was still grabbing on to him before he went to

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