
“My Papas Waltz” was written by Pulitzer prize-winning American Poet, Theodore Roethke. Roethke’s father and uncle passed away when he was just a young teenager; some say this was reflected in his work. In this poem specifically, Roethke is describing a father and a child “waltzing.” The term waltzing is ambiguous when used in the poem because the actions described are not fully elaborated upon. In short, the author could be describing a playful dance around his home with his father or he could be describing the abuse that he suffered at the hands of his father. An example of this could be the use of words by the author such as death, battered, scraped, and beat throughout the poem. From those four words alone, a negative tone develops over the story that the author tells of waltzing with his father. This poem should be interpreted as portraying an abusive father given the author’s use of flashback, diction, and meter.

Theodore Roethke wrote “My Papas Waltz” in the early 1940s when he was then in adulthood. This poem is written from a point of view of an adult looking back on his childhood with a negative image of his father as he recounts the abuse that he and his mother suffered at his father’s hands. When a child goes through any kind of abuse their mind might try to make it seem to be not as bad as it truly was. Even though he uses the word waltzing to try to make it an easier going poem it still shows that he remembers the times his father came home with the smell of whiskey on his breath, his mother’s frown, his battered knuckles holding onto his wrist, and the time his father beat on his head and dragged him off to bed.  When the author uses the word ‘waltzing’ he is obviously just trying to sugarcoat what is quite clearly a very traumatic experience for the author as he flashbacks to the drunken abuse he suffered as a boy.

The diction used is another entity portraying abuse as a child. The first key word Roethke uses in his poem is death. When he chose to start off with such a strong, depressing word he foreshadows the rest of the poem. Right off the bat, the reader thinks of a small boy hanging onto his drunken father just trying to hold onto a relationship that’s only being held onto by one person and not the other. Notice he says “but I hung on like death” (line 3). When thinking of hanging from something, there’s only one person holding on and the other person or object is just there waiting for you to fall. Therefore, you have to do all the work to stay together and giving no effort to help you and no effort to hold you too. 

Roethke then goes on and says “The hand that held my wrist was battered on one knuckle” (line 9 &10). Most of the time knuckles get battered from punching something or someone. That part alone shows an aggressive person because a nice, gentle man would typically not hit anyone. When imagining a hand holding a wrist it seems impersonal like one person doesn’t want to have the connection with the other person that you get when holding hands instead of wrists. In addition, the quote influences the reader to think of a father dragging his son by his wrists. None of these images are a thought of a healthy and happy father and son relationship.

“Scraped” is the next word Roethke used to display an abusive relationship. The direct language he uses is “at every step you missed my right ear scraped a buckle” (line 12). This quote should make the reader interpret a father trying to whip his son with a belt but missing and instead scraps his ear with the buckle on the belt. Last but not least, Roethke used the diction “beat.” In lines 13 and 14, Roethke used the language “You beat time on my head with a palm caked hard by dirt.” This is the main quote that led me to believe that the father is abusive because beating someone on the head isn’t and can’t be a playful thing. Just the fact he used “beat” instead of tapped or something more light and gentle shows the seriousness of this situation. With this being said, all of these examples and dictions could show how the writer had been abused in his past, but they could also just simply be a figure of speech. When writing, sometimes authors like to fluff up their work and make it more dramatic and enticing to read. Roethke could totally be telling a sweet memory between him and his father waltzing the night away. 

Another aspect of this poem that really shows the meaning of Roethke’s writing is the meter he chooses to use throughout. The meter displayed is very simplistic and resembles a waltz in a way. Arguing that this poem could have been written about a memory of waltzing with his father. Although, the meter could also lead the reader to believe it is this simplicity used to show how this abuse effected his mental ability to write something with a more adult tone. Normally when an adult is writing for an adult audience they would try to write in a more mature tone but to show the more childish thoughts and emphasize his abuse in his childhood he wrote in a more juvenile tone.

“My Papas Waltz” should be interpreted as portraying an abusive father given the author’s use of flashback, diction, and meter. Theodore Roethke’s diction was the main evidence of his poem that showed that he was an abusive father. Although, the way he used flashback in this poem was very important in showing this because flashbacks always have a meaning to them. You would normally only write about the parts of your life that were the main things in your life whether it’s a negative or positive experience. This particular poem displaying a negative memory by all of the past examples shown. Finally, the meter portrays the fact that the speaker had a tough childhood by writing in such a simplistic, childish form. By the time you reach adulthood as a writer you would obviously know how to write in a more mature form. Roethke chose to write in a childish format most likely because the hardest times in life are the things you remember the most and while he was writing this he was probably in the moment of being a kid in this situation again. All three of these reasons should lead the reader to infer the father was at least abusive to his son if not his wife too. 