My Papa's Waltz By Theodore Roethke

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Theodore Roethke’s poem, “My Papa’s Waltz,” depicts a boy who is reminiscing days gone by; he recalls one specific night when he was “waltzing” with his father. Like all literary works, poetry is open to interpretation. Every line of a poem affects each individual reader in a unique and personal way. Authors of poetry use this particular style of writing to express deep-seeded emotions. Readers can interpret a piece of literature emotion based on what is common in that time period of society. Readers can also relate to these emotions based on their own life experiences. With how common child abuse was in that time period and even today’s society, some view this poem as an innocent moment of bonding between father and son, but others see it …show more content…

In the third stanza of “My Papa’s Waltz,” the readers will notice the lines read: “The hand that held my wrist/was battered on one knuckle.” Roethke’s audience is under the impression that they are a lower class family and the father works somewhere the requires manual labor. Some might believe that be boy respects his father and the hard work he does. Others will focus more on the “battered knuckle” and the father’s hand placement. This injury to his hand could have happened in a work accident, but it also could have happened in a prior altercation with his child or wife, not to mention the word battered is commonly used as a substitution for the word abuse. When waltzing, a man typically hands his partner's hand, not their wrist. Typically when a child is grabbed by the wrist it is a form of punishment. Roethke shows his audience that there is a fine line between respect and …show more content…

Roethke informs the audience in stanza one that the little boy “hung on like death.” Some will pay close attention to the use of the word death; it is used early on to show readers this may not be just a happy memory, but it is also haunted. Death is also the one thing no one can escape. Maybe the little boy felt that he needed to escape his father but knew that was not possible, just like it is impossible to escape death. It is hard for the reader to determine why the little boy felt he had to hold on so

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