
In “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, the speaker says “such waltzing was not easy” (Roethke 90). Immediately, the audience realizes that this poem is not going to be about a beautiful dance as the title insinuates, but rather a tragic story. The tragedy begins in the first stanza when it is apparent that the father is an alcoholic. The dark tone continues and in the third stanza, the father is being physically abusive towards the son. In the last stanza, the young boy was “clinging” to the fathers’ shirt despite his drunken demeanor, which could possibly be the most tragic part of the whole poem. The father goes from being an alcoholic to an abusive parent and while all of this is occurring, the young boy only thinks they are dancing with one another. In order to emphasize the somber nature of the speaker’s relationship with his father, Roethke juxtaposes the harmonious nature of the waltz and the abuse endured by the reader during his childhood. The poem's﻿ form is waltz-like because the child is too young to understand that he is being abused. The form demonstrates that, i﻿﻿﻿﻿n his innocence, the speaker ﻿﻿still loves the father, despite his fearful reaction to the violence and pain of this experience. ﻿﻿﻿

The poem immediately takes a lyrical, rhythmic form. The speaker uses the beat of the waltz dance to construct the words and stanzas alike. This patterned rhythm is unchanging and is incredibly structured. The first noticeable area of tension between the content and form is in the very first stanza. Children are often naïve and innocent towards the realities of the world and even the realities of their own lives. The speaker of the poem is seen as a youthful and trusting young boy because the speech is childlike, which adds to the already upbeat nature of the poem. There is a sense of comfort in the organization of the poem and the waltz-like style makes the reader believe that the poem has an optimistic theme. The rhythm is apparent when the reader looks at the end of every other line in the stanzas. In each one, the last word rhymes and this complements the already visible form. The rhyme in the first stanza is overly clear because the first line reads, “The whiskey on your breath” (Roethke 90) and the third line is “But I hung on like death” (Roethke 90). The words that rhyme are clearly breath and death. The various aspects of the form are evidence that the intent is to make the reader feel as though the harmonious rhythm will continue and overlap into the meaning of the poem itself. 

One would typically compare a waltz to something beautiful, but instead it is used to describe a dire father-son relationship. The speaker’s father is an alcoholic, which is obvious when the speaker says, “The whiskey on your breath/Could make a small boy dizzy” (Roethke 90). A young boy should never have to see his father in such a state, but the irony is that the speaker does not see it in this way. The speaker sees the father as dancing with him and this is apparent when he says, “Such waltzing was not easy” (Roethke 90). Already, the speaker is relating his relationship with his father to a dance, but the dance must not be as simple as it seems. It is heartbreaking that a young boy is subjected to such behavior, but the speaker is too young to know the extent of his fathers’ actions. That is not all though because the father is not just an alcoholic. In the second and third stanza it becomes clear that he also beats him. This is identified when the speaker says, “That hand that held my wrist/Was battered on one knuckle” (Roethke 91). The young boy is not experienced enough to realize the situations that he is in and in his mind, the father is merely waltzing with him. The poem even mentions the speakers’ mother and it is suggested that she is unhappy. The reader gets this hint when the speaker says, “My mother’s countenance/Could not unfrown itself” (Roethke 91). This suggestion given makes it obvious that the mother was aware of what the father was doing, but there must be other levels to the relationship that made it so that the mother did not stand up to the father. The poor young boy was not mindful of the fathers’ wrongdoings, so he just saw his mother as being sad. This poem is a dreadful tale of a young boy and the life that he had, but never fully grasped. Even with all of the awful actions towards the son by the father, the structural rhythm remains unchanged. The poem is still rhythmically similar to the waltz dance, which is ironic because of what the reader knows about the content. The form is waltz-like because the child is too young to understand that he is being abused and his innocence combined with the violence and pain creates a blind love. 

Through the tense affiliation between the content and form of the poem, the reader is able to more clearly understand the negative affects the father had on his son. The rhythmic aspect of the poem is incredibly deceiving when the meaning becomes clear. Using the waltz as a metaphor is ironic in the sense that it has an upbeat, smooth cadence, yet an alcoholic father who beats his son is not upbeat or smooth. The speaker uses this analogy to further the readers’ ability to comprehend the gravity of the situation. The young boy was blinded by the love he had for his father and was not able to see that the relationship was detrimental. There is an emotional attachment between a parent and child, so it makes sense that the son cannot see this relationship as a traumatic experience. The innocence possessed by the son is to the point where he does not even realize that the father was drunk in his childhood and instead remembers it as a dance. The boy cannot let go of his father though and this is clear when he says, “Then waltzed me off to bed/Still clinging to your shirt” (Roethke 91). The word “clinging” refers to the idea that the boy is steadfastly attached to his father. It is upsetting for the reader to know how awful the fathers’ actions are and read the poem in the rhythm it was written because the speaker is so obviously oblivious. The author of the poem understandably wrote the poem as an adult, but there are serious affects that have lasted. These memories of drinking and abuse continue to haunt the writer of the poem and there may even be parts that he still does not comprehend fully. These events shaped him as a person and such negative events left the speaker with distorted memories. 

Poems often have parallel content and form, but in “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, there is a direct contradiction that becomes clearer in each stanza. The poem begins with the father being an alcoholic, transitions to him beating the son, and all the while the young boy is blind to all of it. The speaker of the poem is too juvenile to fathom the idea that his father is not a great person to be around. This content is analyzed deeper due to the waltz-like rhythm of the poem. The waltz metaphor is used to demonstrate how incongruous the content and form of the poem is, which adds tension to the overall message. Sometimes it is inexperience that allows young children to see the world as a dance even if the reality is much more disastrous and disturbing. 
