Humans are problem solvers. Our natural inclination is to analyze the world around us and to use the information we collect to resolve problems. This trait is what has enabled us to be at the top of the food chain and to develop amazing feats of technology and science. We are discontented when confronted with problems we cannot immediately solve. Puzzles, scientific phenomena, and cliffhangers in television shows all inspire frustration and curiosity in us. We turn it over and over in our minds while awake, and, when asleep, our dreams take the problems we are unable to solve consciously and try to solve them. Dreams become the venue in which humans resolve conflicts and try to rectify our knowledge with our reality. In the poem “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, the reader is confronted with a conundrum. The author tells about the experience of dancing with his father. However, the language he uses to tell the story is dark and negatively connotated, which creates a discrepancy between the reader’s initial thoughts about the narrative of this poem and their feelings about the dance. When confronted with this problem, most readers instinctively try to use the “evidence” presented in this poem and the actual story to create some back story that explains their negative feelings while reading. Many readers study this poem with the intent of discovering its finite meaning. It is unsettling to read a poem and not understand the meaning. However, I assert that to read this poem with the intent of figuring out its singular concrete meaning is to read this poem incorrectly and to dismiss the authors purpose in writing this poem.  The purpose of Theodore Roethke’s poem “My Papa’s Waltz” is to unsettle the reader. To be unsettled as a reader is to be left without a true conclusion and to be left pondering the work. 

In the first stanza, Roethke begins to tell the story of his dance with his father. The rhythm and cadence of this poem seems very lighthearted, almost like a waltz. However, some of the language Roethke uses belays that. He tells that he “hung on like death,” which paints a picture that one may not have been expecting upon reading the title of the poem. To give context to this phrase, Roethke’s father died of cancer when he was a teenager. Maybe, for Roethke, to recall this happy experience is also to remember his father’s death, and to remember how powerless he was to nature. Possibly, this phrase references violence on his father’s part, that his “dance” with his father is a euphemism for a fight. Nevertheless, the reader is left questioning the meaning of Roethke’s words. 

Further along in the first stanza, Roethke describes the waltz as “not easy”. Generally, one would expect that when telling a story of a dance with one’s father, it would be cheerful, not filled with hardship. Yet, when describing this experience, Roethke chooses to characterize it by its difficulty immediately in the first stanza. Of all the ways to describe it, to portray the waltz as “not easy” causes the reader to reflect on what he means, and what the waltz means to him. The reader is again left with more questions than answers. 

In the second stanza, the mood seems to lift, at least early on. Roethke writes “we romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf”. This calls into question Roethke’s earlier description of the dance, which left readers with negative feelings regarding not only Roethke’s welfare, but also regarding the direction the narrative is headed. Is the reader in for what they initially expected, or should the reader steel themselves for the story of violence and sadness they began to expect based on the first stanza? 

The last half of the first stanza leads the reader’s thoughts back to the dark place they thought they had left. Roethke writes “my mother’s countenance could not unfrown itself”. This line draws a whole new angle of the poem into view. Thus far the story has been one about a father and a son, but now the mother is introduced and immediately described to the reader as unhappy. This makes the reader question the true undertones of Roethke’s and his father’s dance. Roethke purposefully leaves the reason the mother is frowning a mystery. The reader, left in a place of unease and confusion, is unsettled.

In the third stanza, Roethke describes his father’s hand holding his wrist in the dance. Roethke writes that the “hand that held my wrist was battered on one knuckle”. This is the turning point at which most readers decide that this is a poem about domestic abuse. The word battered has so much baggage behind it. It is used almost exclusively in reference to women who have been abused, and Roethke purposefully uses this word to leave the reader disturbed.

The fourth stanza continues with the violent imagery when Roethke writes that his father “beat time on my head with a palm caked hard by dirt”. At this point, the reader continues to use the information provided to confirm their suspicions about the meaning of this poem, and disregard the fact that this is still a very ambiguous line. It would be presumptive to draw a full conclusion from this line. 

In the second half of the last stanza, Roethke leaves the reader on uneven ground. Roethke writes that his father “waltzed me off to bed still clinging to your shirt.” This almost fully dissolves the idea of abuse, bringing to mind images of a child lovingly attached to their parent, not wanting to go to bed and miss out on more fun. The author purposefully contradicts the negative feelings associated with the poem with a positive image at the ending. The violent diction and suspicion of abuse do not quickly leave the reader.

 It is here that the reader, after much thought, tires of this sad subject matter and draws an easy conclusion, one that will allow them to let the questions about the poem leave their minds. They likely could conclude that this is a poem about domestic abuse, ignoring all the evidence to the contrary. Roethke’s main goal with this poem is to share a story that he remembers vividly from his youth, that he himself has mixed emotions with, and to convey those emotions to the reader. Roethke wants the reader to deeply consider the text as a result of their confusion, and to be left without a conclusion, much like he himself was left without a resolution to his feelings about his father. 