    There are many ways to cry for help; calling 911 or an emergency contact, screaming, or venting to a therapist. But there is one method that has been the most popular and powerful over the past centuries, and that is writing. Anyone can name one piece of writing that has been about an author’s damaged childhood. It’s too impactful on the author for them not to write about, and causes them to have more influential stories or poems than those with regular childhoods. In 1948, Theodore Roethke wrote the poem “My Papa’s Waltz” to send a helplessness message. In this poem, Roethke uses descriptive phrasing to express that he is in a dysfunctional family.

    A classic factor to any dysfunctional family is a father who is a drunk. Roethke tells us that he has a father who may drink a little too much through the opening lines, “The whiskey on your breath/Could make a small boy dizzy” (90). At least the father has the courtesy to not drink in front of his tiny son. By Roethke’s father being intoxicated, makes the waltz harder on him. We get the image already in the first two lines that a father and son trying to dance around to a happy song, is uncoordinated while the father is swaying and not doing the dance properly. Also the fact that the boy could identify the smell of whiskey is something in itself. For small child to recognize a type of alcohol off of breath must mean they have had multiple experiences with it.  Through descriptive language, these lines further the point that the father is an alcoholic . The lines are descriptive by giving the reader a sense of smell for the intoxicated father. 

    Now that the fact that the father is drunk has been established, the dance can not be easy from Roethke’s perspective. From personal experience and observation, dancing with someone who is under the influence is like trying to dance with a person who is beat deaf. Small children have a tendency to be afraid of bigger people, especially those they are trying to prove themselves to, like a drunk father. As the two dance around, Roethke writes in the third line that he “hung on like death” (90) to his father. Hanging on like death is closely related to the saying to hang on like grim death, which means to hang on for dear life. This indicates that this supposedly joyful dance of waltzing was not so fun for Roethke, as he was concentrating so hard not to mess up his steps. In line eleven, Roethke writes that his father was indeed messing up the dance by writing “every step you missed” (91). Roethke continues to write that the dance was hard on him in line 5. The language here is used descriptively because the audience has some sort of picture of how the two are roughly dancing. Roethke writes that him and his father “romped until the pans/Slid from the kitchen shelf,” (91) meaning that they were pounding away at the floor. How could a small young boy knock over kitchen off the shelf by stomping on the floor? This line is clearly displaying the father’s belligerent, careless movements. Also the descriptive language choice of romped shows that the father was roughly toying with his son. This also points toward an abusive relationship between father and son because in the third line the author was saying how if he messed up, it would end in death. The description of the shaken kitchen gives another realistic image of Roethke and his father’s dance.

    Roethke continues to point toward an abusive relationship with his father. The third stanza starts with the lines “The hand that held my wrist/Was battered on one knuckle” (91). Each of these lines is key to understanding how the author was treated by his father. Usually in a functional relationship you hold hands to show affection and love, but here the father is holding his son by the wrist. This promotes forceful and dangerous signs. Holding someone’s wrist is having control over their whole arm and is used to attack somebody. On that questionable grip, was a knuckle that is damaged. The knuckle was used, showing that the outside of the hand had been used more than once and had been worn out. This is blatant evidence of some form of physical abuse. The hit from the father could have gone to the mother or son.

    So far everything all the evidence of the dysfunctional family is coming from the father-son relationship, but the mother is just as much as a contributor. I’ve learned my whole life that bystanders are just as bad as the bullies. Roethke writes in the seventh and eighth lines that his “mother’s countenance/Could not unfrown itself” (91). The author’s mother is standing right beside the image of a ruthless dance, unhappy with the sight. She knows what is wrong, but will not stop it either due to fear of being abused herself or due to the fact that stopping it will do nothing but cause more problems for the boy. The word countenance is ambiguous here. The more popular meaning in this case would be as a facial expression, saying that the mother is just scowling. The other meaning is to take something as acceptable or tolerate it, which for this situation clearly shows that the mother has seen this befoul scene too many times and has learned to endure it. The word choice is simply a part of the descriptive language, while the over lines of the poem are for the reader to get a detailed impression of the mother’s disgust. 

    The last pieces of evidence support the dysfunction between father and son once again, how the father has a controlling, brutal relationship with his son. From the perspective of his childhood, Roethke writes “You beat time on my head/ With a palm caked hard by dirt” (91). The illustrative word choice of beat is signaling that it was a harder point of contact. The image of someone palming someone’s head seems very controlling and aggressive. The father didn’t tap his son’s head, he beat it. The hand was also dirty, showing that the father has no concern for his son’s cleanliness. Another example of the father’s indifference for his son is when Roethke writes “At every step you missed/My right ear scraped a buckle” (91). The father shows no concern that his child is being scraped on the ear, let alone being scratched by himself. The last example here is yet another descriptive use of language to give imagery to Roethke’s recklessness. 

    Roethke wrote this poem to send a letter to the world that his father did not treat him right. In writing this he could have been thinking about others, in the way that he is definitely not the only one with an abusive, drunk parent. The author had certain word choices to create the image of this rough-characterized father. This got his point across more subtlety then being saying straight out that his father beat him. Writing has the effect to be more powerful when a reader can interpret the words and phrases for themselves, just as the interpretation for “My Papa’s Waltz” is about a dysfunctional family with a belittling father and an innocent son.
