My Papa's Waltz By Theodore Roethke

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"My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke is an interesting poem that begins with some complicity. The tone of the poem brings the impression of a child's unconditional love for his abusive father. The waltz is a formal, intimate dance two people close to each other do and ”Papa” is an affectionate word for father. However, there are signs of violence throughout the poem, despite what we assume about the graceful dance. These hidden messages strongly counteract our normal expectations when we think of a waltz. Some may see this poem just to be a son's cheerful memory of an evening dancing with his father, rather than the child abuse is it truly about.
The fifth and sixth lines describe a time in a families kitchen where pans fall off the …show more content…

The boy says “I hung on like death: / such waltzing was not easy” to show he is being beaten badly but is still hanging on strongly for this life (Roethke 3,4). He also uses the phrase “battered on one knuckle” to describe his father’s knuckles after he was most likely hit (10). The writer chooses the word “battered” in the poem to describe his father’s knuckles because it creates a realistic visual image of the beating. When a person is battered badly by another person, their knuckles often become tore up and …show more content…

The father drinks; “the whiskey on [his] breath / could make a small boy dizzy” (1,2) gives the possibility that the father may be an alcoholic and how is behaviour might have changed when he drank, making him more aggressive. The eleventh through fourteenth lines describe actual harm that was done to the young boy by way of his father’s drinking: “At every step you missed / My right ear scraped a buckle / You beat time on my head / With a palm caked hard by dirt” (11-14). We can actually picture the boy clinging to his fathers leg as his ear scrapes the father’s belt

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