
Football games, hunting trips, and playing catch in the backyard are all commonplace memories that envelop the bond of a father and son. However, in Roethke’s My Papa’s Waltz, the speaker reminisces on a memory that isn’t as picture perfect as those previously mentioned. Despite the poem’s strident tone, some would argue Roethke admired his father and that Roethke followed his father around as he worked and even idolized him. While the poem leaves us feeling appreciative of our caring, thoughtful fathers, the text gives us a strong sense of family loyalty. Even though his father is nowhere near perfect, the boy gives his devoted love to him anyways. Roethke guides us to his theme of family loyalty through his work’s structure, metaphors and similes, and diction. 

When we think of poetry, we oftentimes think about rhyme scheme. When a poem follows a rhyme scheme it is naturally more appealing because it follows a distinct pattern.  In this particular poem, you can notice that it follows the ABAB rhyme scheme. We see this when Roethke rhymes the words “Breath” (Line 1) with “Death” (Line 3), and “Dizzy” (Line 2) with “Easy” (4). In addition to the rhythm at the end of each line, Roethke also includes an intricate rhythm within the lines as well.  The poem is iambic trimeter which means that a stressed syllable follows an unstressed syllable. In particular, there are three stressed syllables in each line.  This structure supports the poem in a way that creates a rhythm as if you were actually doing a waltz. While the speaker talks of violence like “we romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf” the waltz like rhythm reassures the reader with a sense of calmness, despite the destructive scene taking place. In addition, Roethke choses to do a trimeter instead of the more known pentameter because an actual waltz contains three beats as well. To connect back to the thesis, Roethke’s choice to structure his poem with rhyming, and iambic trimeter is made with a conscious effort to show the reader that even though there is a violence taking place in the scene, to the boy it is no different than his everyday life. The structural elements of the text connect back to Roethke’s theme of family loyalty because it leads the reader to believe that even though this should be a chaotic scene, we get a sense of normality and order from the rhythm he produces, which shows that the boy doesn’t mind the disorder that follows his father.

The comparisons within this poem take a large presence within the theme of family loyalty in this piece of literature. For instance, on line 3 Roethke states “But I hung on like death” here, Roethke compares how tightly he is hanging on to his father to the irreversible presence of death. This line does its job of startling the reader because no boy with such innocence in his life should have to compare any of his actions to something so morbid. This sentence relates back to the central theme of family loyalty very well. It relates to the theme because the image of the boy clinging to his father displays how he is still loyal to him and will never let go of his father. However, comparing it to the word “death” creates a negative tone to the phrase, proving that even though his admires his father there is still that sense of abuse within the relationship. While there are comparisons within the lines of the poem, when you look back with a broader stance of the poem, the entire poem is one big metaphor. Since the poem is titled “My Papa’s Waltz” we’d expect to see some form of dancing throughout the lines. However, a better word for “waltz” shows up in line 5 when Roethke uses the word romped. 

While it can be argued that Roethke intended this poem to be a playful flashback of his father and him dancing carelessly through the kitchen, this is not true because the diction within the work and their underlying connotations denote a negative and even chaotic tone throughout the poem. The diction Roethke used displays a tone that can be rendered as either happiness and full of joy, or violent and aggressive. He uses words with negative connotations such as “death,” “countenance,” “unfrown,” and “battered,” as well as positive ones like “waltz,” “romp,” and “held,” it is easy to understand how the poem could be interpreted in different ways. Throughout the poem, there are other phrases that have negative connotations as well. For example, when he says that his father would “beat time” on his head, it leads us to believe he is not just tapping on his head but actually harming the boy. However, when he states that he was waltzed off to bed still clinging to his father’s shirt, we get the idea that no matter how his father acts, the boy still holds him close and cannot let go.

 In the poem, “My Papa’s Waltz”, Roethke remembers a time in his youth of twisted emotions of fear and unconditional love towards his father in spite of the imperfections his father has. This poet has showed the theme of family loyalty through with his iambic trimeter, overall metaphor and word choice. We all have fathers, whether or not we are close with them, and Roethke does a good job of reminding us that no matter their faults we should stay loyal to our family no matter what. 
