Children often view their parents as a source of love even if the relationship is abusive due to the simple fact that they are the child’s parents. As a child, the author of “My Papa’s Waltz” did not want to admit that the relationship he had with his father was anything but a normal, loving relationship. Throughout this poem there are examples of the writer sharing this negative experience from his childhood while also sharing the fact that he never stopped loving his father. The narrator of the poem writes of the experience he had one night with his father and it is left to the audience to interpret the type of relationship the two have. In the poem “My Papa’s Waltz” Theodore Roethke uses word choice, structure, and symbolism while telling the audience of the relationship the boy in the poem had with his father in order to share the undying love that a child has for their parent regardless of the situation.

The overwhelming presence of negative words in this poem was the first thing indicating that this was not just about a dance between a father and son in the kitchen. There are many instances where the author could have used a more loving word choice but chose to use words with negative connotations such as when the father “beat time” (line 13) on the son’s head instead of keeping time. The author also describes the way he held on to his father as “like death” (line 3) and “clinging” (line 16) which brings the feeling that he was fighting to hold onto the love and positive part of the relationship between his father and himself because he loved his father regardless of the situation. The young boy in this poem is reluctant to accept the truth of what his relationship with his father truly is so he is “clinging” to the hope that the drunken nights will end and more positive memories with his father will become more abundant. 

One of the few, yet possibly the most influential positive words in this piece is Papa. The word father has a more serious connotation than papa, while not showing the more personal connection between the parent and child. Words such as Daddy and Papa bring a level of affection and the feeling of a closer relationship between the two characters than not only someone who fathered a child, but someone who helped care for and raise the child. The author of this poem chooses to use the word Papa instead of father to show the fact that the child still loves his father even if they have an abusive relationship. The author is looking at the situation through the pure eyes of a child who can find the good in the drunken father even when there are abusive tendencies in the relationship. This shows the forgiving nature that the narrator has towards his father regardless of the abuse and neglect in the relationship.

Poetry often uses not only the words to communicate meaning, but also the structure, rhyme patterns, and stressed or unstressed syllables. The way “My Papa’s Waltz” is written has a beat to the words which suggest a waltzing motion. The poem has three beats of stressed and unstressed words per line which is the same as the dancing beat of the dance, the waltz. This relates back to the title while also having a feeling of repetition. This suggests that this drunken episode between the father and son is not a one-time thing, but something that continues to occur and come back into their relationship. These episodes of abuse could come and go depending on how the father’s day went or amount the of alcohol he had consumed. 

This poem is written with three beats per line with six syllables in each line, yet there are a couple instances when that pattern is disrupted. In lines 10 and 12, when it says “Was battered on one knuckle” (line 10) and “My right ear scraped a buckle” (line 12), do not follow the six syllable line pattern as the rest of the poem does. This relates to the fact that the father is drunk and that something is wrong in the child’s eyes. In a deeper since, the child could be referring to the fact that as a father, his papa is missing some moments that every father should reach when having a loving and strong relationship with their child. His father could be missing out on important events in the child’s life or missing key traits that fathers generally have. The added syllable in these lines represents the addition of alcohol and abuse into the father- son relationship. Due to this addition, the father misses out on moments in the son’s life. Also, these lines that the author chose to have a different pattern have very prominent negative words and are two of the most abusive sounding lines in the poem. This is one of the ways that the author was making it known that the relationship between the father and son was in fact abusive. 

The dance, the waltz is led, or controlled by one dance partner while the other follows. The fact that this poem is calling this interaction between father and son a waltz also leads to the conclusion that the father is the one in control of this family and possibly is the leading cause of the abusive relationship. If you were to think of this relation in future terms, the son may follow in the father’s footsteps and have abusive relationships later in life because one follows the other’s footsteps during the dance. Children in situations like this sometimes grow up to have similar relationships with their families because this is what they are used to seeing and experiencing. 

Theodore Roethke wrote the poem “My Papa’s Waltz” in such a way that seemingly tells one story, but upon analysis has many levels, meanings, and different possible interpretations of the story. There are many aspects such as word choice, structure, and symbolism that are used to convey to the audience that the poem is about more than an isolated drunken incident between the father and son. The reader is able to use their personal experiences, opinions, and ideas in order to make conclusions about the meaning of the poem and the relationship between the father and son. This poem uses the components in order to share that regardless of the negative aspects of the relationship, a child often loves their parent unconditionally and seeks out the positive within the negative situations.   
