
In “My Papa’s Waltz”, written by Theodore Roethke, Roethke gives an insight into the relationship between him and his father. The descriptions the author uses make the meaning of the poem controversial and hard to determine if he is describing a good or bad relationship between him and his father. Throughout the poem, Roethke uses harsh imagery to describe his father which can give off the impression that his father was physically abusive towards him, but if one looks deeper into the text, one can see that the poem actually illustrates the love the narrator and his father have for each other. 

Roethke starts out the poem by saying that “the whiskey on his father’s breath could make a small boy dizzy” (Roethke, 90), which implies that his father was most likely was a usual drinker or else the author would not have mentioned it in the poem. However, this flaw of his father does not interrupt the love he has for him. He goes on to say “But I hung on like death: such waltzing was not easy” (Roethke, 90). The use of the metaphor “I hung on like death” gives off the impression that the boy was terrified, but that is not what the author was trying to relay to the readers. Instead, this image portrays to the audience that he was holding on so tightly because the “waltzing” was difficult and probably did not want to stumble or fall. This however would be easily misinterpreted if the reader was skimming through the poem quickly without taking the time to analyze this quote and piece the poem together.

Roethke then talks about how they “romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf; my mother’s countenance could not unfrown itself” (Roethke, 91). The fact that the definition of “romp” means to play energetically gives the description a lighter tone. Not only that, but the way his mother reacted was not in a way that a mother would react if her son were getting physically abused. If that was the case, she would have reacted more seriously, rather than just having a frown on her face. The frown on her face was due to the fact that the father and son were causing a ruckus in the kitchen. Just from reading the first two stanzas, it is already clear that the relationship between the author and the father was a loving relationship. 

In the third stanza of the poem, he gives a description of his father that leaves a negative image in the reader’s head but once again, once the text is further looked into, one can realize that this is a misconception. Roethke uses the word “battered” to describe his father’s hand, that held onto his wrist. However, above the poem, there is background information on the author’s father. Included in this background information was the author’s father’s job, which was in a greenhouse. Therefore, one can conclude that the injuries on his hand are not related to any type of physical abuse. The injuries on his hand were most likely related to his job or something unrelated to his son. This can be inferred by the previous stanzas where he shows that he is having fun with his dad, proving that there was no abuse between the two. He then says that “his right ear scraped a buckle at every stepped his father missed” (Roethke, 91). One can infer that all the author means by this is that during him and his father waltzing, his father’s buckle would occasionally rub against his ear due to the dancing. His father’s buckle scraping against his ear was not intentional and you can tell this by the way he explains it. 

The author ends the poem by using the metaphor, “you beat time on my head, with a palm caked hard by dirt” (Roethke, 91). Roethke does not mean his father actually beat his head, but uses the metaphor to explain that his father was letting him know that it was time for bed in despite to the author not wanting to. The fact that his hands were caked with dirt shows no physical abuse but just supports the idea in the previous stanza that his hands were battered because of working in the greenhouse. Roethke then says “then waltzed me off to bed, still clinging to your shirt” (Roethke, 91). When reading this, it seems as if the author was clinging on to his shirt in fear but that is not the case in this situation. The author was clinging on to his father’s shirt while they “waltzed” to bed, because as the author implied earlier in the stanza, he did not want to go back to bed. The fact that he did not want to go to bed yet and that his father had to “beat it into his head” that it was bed time, goes to show that him and his father were having a good time together. This quote may be hard to understand, but it is the biggest give away, along with the stanza about his mother, that make it easy to realize that he loved his father and loved spending time with him.

Roethke describes his father in a way that can make it easy to assume that his father is abusive towards him. However, if one looks deeper into the text, one can see that the author was reminiscing on a good memory with his father, rather than a bad memory. Throughout the story, Roethke talks about his father had the smell of whiskey on his breath, how he hung on like death to his father while they waltzed, how his mother countenance was unhappy, that his father beat time on his head, etc. As I said before, these all seem like negative descriptions but the author has happy meanings behind these descriptions. At the beginning of the poem, this can be hard to realize, but as the poem goes on and the reader puts more thought into what the author is trying to say, it obvious that the author and his father had a great, loving relationship.  
