My Papa's Waltz Theme

In the poem, My Papa’s Waltz, Theodore Roethke shares the male main character’s reminiscing memory about a specific time in his youth reflecting his emotions of love and fear towards the imperfections of his father. The young boy in the poem loves his father’s presence and eats up every second he has with him fueling his masculinity and macho-ness.
Roethke introduces the father as not only as someone who comes home to “play” with his son, but a heavy drinker: “The whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy.” (1-2) Whiskey is traditionally considered a “manly” drink. By having the father drinking whiskey, Roethke hints that the father is a man amongst men because of the severity of how much he consumed to the point that his son could

be made dizzy by the stench on his breath. For the son, this is seemed as a fun moment in being around his, possibly, drunken father coming home to share a loving moment before bedtime.
Roethke named the poem, My Papa’s Waltz, but unlike an elegant dance of a waltz, this dance is more rough and male horseplay centered; masculine and rough: “We romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf,” (5-6), is a reoccurring motif.

As the son follows his father’s lead, his admiration grows with each second his mother stands in the background in silence, influencing his manliness of her silence. Roethke’s choice of setting, in the second stanza, displayed that it was a key male bonding experience, but at the expense of the mother in her kitchen: “My mother’s countenance could not unfrown itself,” (7-8); which is traditionally the feminine area of any home. Her disapproval provides a contrast to the masculinity of her husband and son, who are making a big ruckus. The boy notices her unhappiness, but instead of stopping to consult her, he’s fueled to continue to show to his idol, his father, that he isn’t going to coddle his mom and not show any sign of being soft. The common saying of men being men and male comradery are a sense of pride for most men and young boys growing up. Father-son bonding is the son’s loving moment as his mother, in silence, wants to protest, but following traditional gender roles, she’s submissive to the males at a 2-to-1

disadvantage.

The third stanza and the first two lines of the final stanza show a volta in where Roethke sets fear into the boy as his enjoyment fades slightly: “At every step you missed my right ear scraped a buckle,” (Line 11-12).

With the boy being lead by his father’s drunken version of a waltz, assumingly he is as tall as the buckle of the belt of the father and is physically getting hurt. His ear being scraped is reflected as if the boy is making the mistake, but in reality it is the father hurting him in another example of boys-will-be-boys comradery in this rare father-son male bonding. Roethke uses the description of the father’s hands as an inside into a father coming home from the bar after a long day working: “You beat time on my head with a palm caked hard by dirt,” (13-14). The father is possibly a blue-collar worker who came home from a rough, long day at work who spent his time drinking more than he should have at a bar, to come home to find his son still up; “waltzing” with his son, the father hits his son to keep up with his beat of the

dance.

However, the text and subtext doesn’t suggest that the son is emotionally upset, but simply in a mixed emotion of loving his father and fearing him in one dance as his father has the presence in mind to take him to bed with the son holding on to his father’s shirt as their male bonding is coming to a close.