
 Theodore Roethke is a well known American poet and author, who spent numerous years teaching at various universities across America. Roethke had what some would call a challenging childhood, which had a lasting impact on him as a person and was therefore reflected in his writings. Two events that had the most impact on him were his uncle committing suicide and his father dying of cancer, both occurring when he was a young child. As he grew older, Roethke became a heavy drinker and was therefore susceptible to many mental illnesses. This was around the time that he started writing poems, and these life events are reflected in those writings. “My Papa’s Waltz” is a perfect example of a piece where this is evident, where he describes a situation in which a child is having to witness his father’s heavy drinking habits, yet he still manages to love him at the end of the day. This poem shows that although children are not completely oblivious to the world around them, they still love the people who play important roles in their lives unconditionally. Roethke primarily uses strong diction choices along with literary devices such as simile to help portray this meaning.

Roethke’s strong diction choices are what really stood out to me when coming up with the meaning for this poem. There are two categories that his diction choices fall under throughout the poem: dance and violence. These are two completely different categories, yet they work together to contrast each other to exemplify the meaning. The poem’s title, “My Papa’s Waltz”, automatically suggests the use of diction choices related to dance, and these are used throughout the poem. In the first stanza, he says “but I hung on like death: such waltzing was not easy” (Roethke 92).  This quote highlights the fact that the child is being fully effected by the father’s actions, and it also shows that the child struggles with this when it occurs, saying that it “wasn’t easy”, but he holds on anyways. This helps to display the child’s unconditional love for his father, one that pretty much any child could relate to when it comes to their parents. Continuing on, the poem talks about how the child still deals with his father despite the “whiskey on [his] breath”, referencing his drunkenness. This sentence’s diction choice of the whiskey incorporates his drinking habits that help to explain my interpretation that the father is going overboard, therefore in turn effecting his child in a very negative way. However, it continues to say that the waltz was not easy, showing how difficult it is for him to deal with his father when he is like this. The second stanza continues with the dance theme by saying “we romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf” (Roethke 92), romped being the diction choice portraying the dance theme. This sentence talks of how they danced until something fell, which incorporates both themes of the youthfulness (dancing) and violence (knocking something over in the process). The concluding sentence in the poem ties in the waltz again, saying that the father “waltzed [him] off to bed still clinging to [his] shirt” (Roethke 92). This is the sentence that helped me the most to come to my interpretation of the meaning of the poem. It shows that despite the events leading up to him being put to bed, which involved numerous bouts of violence, he still loves his father unconditionally and does not want him leaving, hence why he was “still clinging to his shirt” (Roethke 91) as he put him to bed. 

Although the poem’s title does not suggest violence, after a close reading of the text it became more and more evident, and the diction choices played a large role in helping me see this, even coming to find more diction relating to that than the waltz itself. The third stanza incorporates both, but it mainly highlights the violence taking place in the situation. Starting out the stanza, Roethke states that “the hand that held my wrist was battered on one knuckle” (92). This quote shows that violence was very prevalent in both the father and son’s lives, however it took place in different ways. When it comes to the son, he is exposed to violence with his father on a seemingly daily basis, this quote particularly regarding how his father is constricting him by holding him back with a scratched up knuckle that had obviously previously been involved in some sort of violence. As for the father, violence is seen in his life often as well, however his is more in a self inflicted way, like causing fights with other people while intoxicated. Continuing the stanza, he says that “every step you missed, [his] right ear scraped a buckle” (92). This incorporates both the dance diction as well as a reference to violence and his drunkenness. He talks of how he was missing steps, referencing both the dancing along with his intoxication that was noticeably prohibiting him from being able to participate properly. He then references the violence by saying that “his right ear scraped a buckle”, showing how his father, intentionally or unintentionally, was hurting him throughout this process. In the final stanza, he makes his last reference towards violence when he talks of how “you beat time on [his] head with a palm caked hard by dirt” (Roethke 92). This shows both the violent side of the situation, beating time on his head, and the fact that he is a hard working father, the dirt caked on his hands. These diction choices made throughout the poem, both dance and violence related, help contribute to the interpretation I came up with because they work together to show that although the child is not oblivious to the situation, his youthfulness is still shown and his love for his father is unwaivering despite challenges. The dance diction not only helps to tie back into the title of the poem, but it also helps portray the youthfulness of the child, seeing as I interpreted him to be a very young age. I felt this was an accurate interpretation for the child’s age because he seems very dependent on his father, “clinging to his shirt” (91) while his father takes him off to bed. Putting him to bed is another sign that the child is young, having his father still tuck him in at night. The violence diction choices show how the father gets when he is drunk, and how the child has to deal with this first hand. Yet, a combination of the dance imagery and diction choices made, show that despite the difficulties the young child faces with his father in this situation, he still loves his father and wants to be with him.

Roethke incorporates his own personal experiences into his poems, and My Papa’s Waltz is no exception. Dealing with the death of his close personal relatives at a young age and then proceeding to become an alcoholic, he writes from his own perspective to give us as readers an inside perspective to what it was like to be in that situation. Using strong diction choices to help portray this message, he shows that children aren’t completely oblivious to what is happening in the world around them, yet they still have a sense of innocence. The child in this poem was aware of the fact that his father should not be acting the way he was, yet he seemed to disregard it simply because of the unconditional love he has for his father, a very important figure in his life. This poem overall shows that the father-son relationship is more of a bond, something that can’t really be broken even through tough times, trials, and tribulations. Every relationship goes through tough times and has some bumps in the road at points, but it’s unconditional love that gets you through those times and helps you both to be better people in the end, and Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” is no exception.
