
In My Papa’s Waltz, there are two major ways of viewing the text. The ambiguous content throughout the poem immediately forces the reader to think that the poem is a negative memory, whereas if readers were to really understand Roethke’s diction choice they would realize it could also be seen as a positive memory. Theodore Roethke grew up helping to manage his families twenty-five-acre greenhouse. At the young age of 14, he was forced to face the tragic event of his father, the man who he loved and idolized, dying from cancer. Most of his poetry was influenced by his early life experiences and his father. Twenty years after his father’s passing he continued to write as a “lost son”, which would explain his book titled The Lost Son, where My Papa’s Waltz was later published in. Although the word choice leads the reader to negatively interpret the poem, it is Theodore Roethke’s childhood background and the double meaning of the words that leads the reader to see the positivity within the poem. 

When first reading My Papa’s Waltz, most readers get the impression that the memory is negative because of the diction the author uses. The poem begins with the sentence, “The whiskey on your breath” (Roethke). After reading those five short words, many readers may associate that with alcoholism. The lines, “At every step you missed, my right ear scraped a buckle” (Roethke), give the reader the impression that the narrator’s father is probably abusive and beating him with a belt because they have already associated him with being an alcoholic. The father could be stumbling around swinging the belt so he is missing the child’s head and only catching his ear. The narrator then goes on to say, “You beat time on my head” (Roethke). The word “beat” continues to lead the reader to believe the father has an abusive characteristic. This word choice makes it seem as if the father is hitting the small boy hard on the head. The narrator states how his “mother’s countenance could not unfrown itself” (Roethke). These lines may lead the reader to believe the mother is upset because her husband is beating their son, or that her husband has already beaten her. Although some diction the author uses leads readers to interpret the poem as a negative memory, the double meaning will reveal that the poem is actually a positive experience. 

Viewing the poem as positive requires a double reading; much of the diction could have another more positive meaning. Readers generally fail to realize that My Papa’s Waltz can go two different ways. At the beginning of the poem the narrator describes himself as a “small boy”. When the narrator then says, “At every step you missed, my right ear scraped a buckle” (Roethke), the boy may be on the dad’s feet while they dance, and since he is so small when his dad stumbles a little, due to the fact that he is drunk, his ear catches the buckle of the belt his father is wearing. Then the narrator goes on to say, “You beat time on my head” (Roethke). A waltz is a dance that goes by a beat pattern, so the dad is simply counting the beats by tapping the child’s head. The lines, “The hand that held my wrist, was battered on one knuckle” (Roethke), could be autobiographical since Roethke’s father worked in a greenhouse, and could have had palms “caked hard by dirt” (Roethke). While the word “battered” indicates abuse, it could refer to the marks of physical labor, or in this case working in a greenhouse. The lines where the narrator tells us how his “mother’s countenance could not unfrown itself” (Roethke), tells the reader that his mother is annoyed that the narrator and his father were dancing “until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf” (Roethke). They are making a mess that the mother was probably going to have to clean up. When readers look for double meaning and think about the diction in a less obvious context the poem could very well be about a positive experience.

When reading My Papa’s Waltz, the last two lines usually come as a surprise to the reader because of the double meaning. In the text, the last two lines read, “Then waltzed me off to bed still clinging to your shirt” (Roethke). These lines are crucial to bringing the double meaning of the poem to realization. After the audience has read the poem and think they knew the real meaning the whole time, they get to these last two lines and start to question their thoughts. Although a child would still love their parent despite the fact if they were abusive, would a child actually cling and hold onto the shirt of a father who is abusing them? Maybe the father isn’t even abusive at all, maybe he’s just dancing with his son after getting a couple drinks with friends after a hard day of work. It is probably time for the child to go to bed, and the father is dancing him into his room, but the son doesn’t want to go; nobody liked bedtime as a child. If readers keep an open mind while viewing this poem, they will be able to realize that there is a double meaning when they get to the last two lines. 

Although most of the word choice in My Papa’s Waltz leads readers to view the poem as a negative experience, a positive experience can be seen by thinking about Roethke’s autobiographical background and how diction can have a double meaning. Diction is often the first thing readers notice in a text. When people don’t see that there is a double meaning to a poem they generally stick with what they know, and when they get to the last two lines they are thrown off completely. People should double read because poems can usually be viewed in various different ways, and it helps the reader to think about the meaning the writer is trying to get across. 

   

 