



After the reading the poem “My Papa’s Waltz” a reader’s first guess would be that the boy is being abused by his alcoholic father. The author used words such as whiskey, battered and romped, that gave the reader that initial expression. A negative relationship is assumed between the father and son until the very last stanza. It suggested that even though the father may have hit him, he still loves his dad. That line opened up the thought that there could be a different meaning to this poem. After digging a little deeper, the author is trying to get the reader to recognize that the relationship between the son and the father, was a strict but loving relationship.

The last stanza pushed me to think about the relationship of Theodore Roethke and his father. This can have an impact on the meaning of the text. His biography states that growing up as a child he lived in a happy home and he enjoyed working with his father. This changed the overall prospective of the poem. The relationship of the son and father can now be viewed from a positive prospective. The author is reflecting on a time from his child hood with his father. 

The author starts the poem off by describing the appearance of the dad. This is when you assume that the relationship is abusive because the father is described as being drunk. “The whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy.” When first reading the poem someone would assume that the boy was uneasy with his father’s condition but spent time with his father because maybe this was the only time he could. When further reading the poem, you can see that the young boy enjoyed dancing and being in his father’s presence despite the alcohol because he held on for his life. Just because the father was drunk does not mean he was abusing his son.

The next stanza of the poem focused on the mother and how she may feel about the young boy and his father. “We romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf; My mother’s countenance could not unfrown itself.” In this part of the poem, it is obvious that the young boy and the father are still having a great time. They were having so much fun that they knocked over the pans on the shelf that made the mother respond. The mother’s facial expression was not pleasant at all and she did not agree with what was occurring. The mother was upset at this time because they were making a mess in the kitchen and for the father being rough with their son. This is a normal reaction from a mother. The mother is the one that keeps things in order in the house and the father and son was messing that up. If the father was doing real harm to his son the mother would have responded differently. She may have tried to stop it. The poem did not state that the mother tried to stop them which is why we can say that they were playing around.

In the third stanza, the mood takes a drastic turn which can be predicted by the sequence of the poem. In the first stanza, it can be assumed that a young boy and his father danced. In the second stanza the mother was upset and displeased with what was occurring in the kitchen because they were knocking things over. In the third stanza, “The hand that held my wrist was battered on one knuckle; at every step you missed my right ear scraped a buckle.” Obviously, the young boy was getting punished by his father for messing up the dance. Every time the young boy missed a step his father hit him with a buckle on the right side of his face. This can be related back to the father being very strict and if the son did something wrong he was punished. 

The fourth stanza of the poem is very similar to the first stanza because they were still step by step waltzing and the young boy was still holding on. “You beat time on my head with a palm caked hard by dirt, then waltzed me off to bed still clinging to your shirt.” Continuing in the fourth stanza the young boy was still beat and still held on to his father as he led him to bed. This shows that the father was very strict and was expecting for his son to get the dance right, when he did not he was punished. The son understood that the father loved him which is why he was still clinging to his shirt. It is also possible that the son was clinging to his father to get another chance.

The words used throughout the poem allowed the reader to open up the text to their own interpretation. The words that stud out led me to believe the relationship was different were whiskey, death, waltzing, romped and countenance. All of these words can be used in a different way that changes the meaning. For example, waltzing in the text could mean the son moving around to get away from his father. Then it could be used to describe what they were doing which was dancing or playing. These words helped describe one of many experiences with his father. The word romping allowed us to determine the father and son was being rough which each other, this is why the mother’s countenance was a frown. The words were descriptive enough to paint the image in your head about what is going on.  

In conclusion, “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, can be seen from multiple perspectives. When you read it for the first time, you are led to believe that the child is abused by his alcoholic father and the mother was not pleased about it. After learning about the author, a reader is led to believe that the relationship is loving and not abusive. The choice of words that the author uses throughout the poem was a great indication of the deeper meaning. It really allowed you to see the relationship in a different way as well as painting an image in your mind. The relationship between the father and son was strict but loving.



 