
Family tends to shape who we are as adults. We either want to be like the ones who raised us or the complete opposite. The reasoning behind these choices is the lasting memories or defining moments our families contributed to. Most of who we are is defined by family even we don’t think so. The simplest choices or actions made could've been a result of those who are close to us. Sometimes there are moments in our life that conflict us because family usually inflicts love, but sometimes members don’t reciprocate that love back which leads to a mental conundrum. 

In the poem My Papa’s Waltz by Theodore Roethke we learn about a family relationship many choose to forget rather than write about. Roethke chooses to share his story of an abusive father-son relationship in a tone that most wouldn’t use. The use of a light-hearted tone leads to believing that Roethke’s childhood relationship with his family is a complicated one which he struggled with even as an adult. 

From the first line we already get a picture of what the poet’s father is like.  The first opening remark is, “The whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy” (Roethke, Lines 1-2). This paints the picture of father who is a alcoholic and the foundation for maybe a unstable relationship. The next lines are, “But I hung on like death: Such waltzing wasn’t easy” (Roethke, Lines 3-4). These following lines further the relationship as one of love, but also one of difficulty because he says the “waltz wasn’t easy”. This first stanza paints a picture of a light hearted tone from the opening sentence. The use of slang language and rhyme scene adds to the tone by making it seem like a lighthearted opening about a alcoholic father who wants to dance with his son for fun. The more digging that is done you realize the use of this lighthearted tone masks the fact that even from this first stanza there is something wrong with the father son relationship the poet is having. 

The second stanza further uses the lighthearted tone, but further develops a strain in the family relationship. It starts of by saying, “We romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf,” which supports the tone of being lighthearted and the father having fun with his son as they dance around the kitchen (Roethke, Lines 5-6). It is the next two lines which makes it seem like a different view of what’s going on. These lines say, “My mother’s countenance could not unfrown itself” (Roethke, Lines 7-8). This shows a major develop in the story line the poet is telling. The look on the mother’s face is that of sadness and displeasure leading us to believe that this “waltz” the poet is talking about is not something as lighthearted as the tone describes. This waltz could be something the father is doing to the son but the context is not developed enough and the tone is still too lighthearted to assume this just yet.

The third stanza is integral to the development of the relationship between the father and son in this poem. This stanza opens up with, “The hand that helped my wrist was battered on one knuckle,” which immediately changes the view on the father (Roethke, Lines 9-10). The prior two stanzas had given a lighthearted tone which totally masked the darkness of the poem, but now we see that there is some abuse here. These two lines show the intimacy of the holding the father’s hand, but the abuse with battered knuckle. In the next two line sit says, “At every step you missed my right ear scraped a buckle,” which shows even more abuse to the son, but this tone keeps furthering the idea of a complicated relationship within the family (Roethke, Lines 11-12).

The fourth stanza sums up the whole idea of what relationship the father and son have. In the conclusion it says, “You beat time on my head with a palm caked hard by dirt, then waltzed me off to bed still clinging to your shirt” (Roethke, Lines 13-16). There is still the theme of the the father abusing the son, but we now know how the son still feels about his father. He still clings to him after getting abused showing no matter how drunk and abusive his father is he still loves him very much. This love for his father through this is the reason there is a lighthearted tone to this poem. He chooses to look at the abuse through rhyme and the waltz because that’s how he liked to see it compared to being just abused by the one he loves. This is a type of coping mechanism for the poet to rationalize what happened to him. 

Reading this poem as whole shows that family relationships are so very complicated. The poet, who is the son in the poem, truly loves his father despite everything that his father does to him. Even though his mother doesn’t approve of the abuse she continues to let it happen most likely out of fear of her own husband. Most people love their parents through the hardest times, even if it means being abused. This shows truly how complicated family relationships are because the love for a parents sometimes overshadows anything they could ever do to disrupt that.

 Specifically in this poem the use of a lighthearted tone adds to this notion of a complicated relationship. The poet chooses to use this tone to describe an abusive relationship which shows a deep rooted issue they are most likely have involving their family. If he chooses to use a light tone to describe a dark memory he is obviously struggling with his decisions mentally. He doesn’t know how to feel about how his father treated him because it’s a bad thing that happened but he must love his father to describe it as a waltz rather than straight up abuse. If the lighthearted tone in the poem didn’t exist the whole poem would have a much darker meaning. This poem proves that families have complicated relationships that are difficult to describe and sometimes the only way to cope and understand them is to do it in a way such Roethke did in the poem My Papa’s Waltz.
