Many households in America and throughout the entire world encounter broken households. Whether a family is struck with divorce, a death in the family, or violence in the household, a broken home life is tough on the entire family. Unfortunately, a broken household is usually toughest on the children. Children are extremely fragile and they need their family to support them, encourage them, and teach them how to grow up. Even if the parents are supporting the child, a broken household, in most cases, heavily affects children of all ages. Another problem that arises in broken households is the children trust the abusive parent or parent’s and do not know how or when to say stop. They ignore the abusiveness of the parent and keep it to themselves. The long term effects of keeping their experiences to themselves are devastating to many children. This connects directly to the poem My Papa’s Waltz by Theodore Roethke. My Papa’s Waltz is narrated from a boy’s perspective and it is about a father and a son who are waltzing in the middle of the kitchen. The father drank too much whiskey and was throwing his son around while they were dancing. The father continuously scrapes the boy’s ear with his belt buckle and was keeping time on the top of the boy’s head rather harshly. The father-son relationship in My Papa’s Waltz is abusive and the poem has an overall theme of darkness and death. 

Domestic abuse is an underlying message throughout the text. The tone of this poem is dark and this is established early. Death is brought up in line three and four of the poem, “But I hung on like death, Such waltzing was not easy” (Roethke 90). The boy’s father is very drunk and is swinging his son around hard enough for the boy to have to hang on tightly or “like death”. The father is playing a little too rough with his son and this hints that there is a history of abuse or aggressiveness with the father. Instead of this scene being a playful and happy family moment, there is tension between the father and the boy because the boy is being whirled around too harshly. Sadly, the father was too drunk to realize his son is uncomfortable. The boy could have stopped dancing with his father but he would have been running the risk of disappointing his father or making him angry. Obviously, the boy did not want to upset his father, especially since his father was so drunk. This is clearly some sort of abuse and it shows the boy has been conditioned to go along with anything his father wants him to do. Either the boy can follow his father’s directions, or pay the consequences, whatever those may be. 

As the poem progresses, there are several more signs that there could be a history of abuse in the family. The father becomes more aggressive with the waltz and the imagery provided in the poem becomes more vivid. Lines nine through ten provide a dark image, “The hand that held my wrist, Was battered on one knuckle” (Roethke 91). One can picture this scene easily. The father gripping the boy’s hand tightly and the boy looking down at the father’s dirty knuckles. The boy refers to his father’s hand as “The hand” and that also creates a scared tone. The boy saying “The hand” makes it seem like he is scared of his father because of the grip he has on his wrist. This line gives the impression that once the boy’s father becomes physical with him, he begins to be intimidated of his father. Also, the father gripped the boy’s wrist and gripping someone’s wrist is usually a showing of power or strength. Of course, the boy should not be scared of his father even if he grips his wrist but in this family dynamic, that is how it is. The father’s knuckle was said to be battered which also provides a hint at what is going on in the household. Roethke must have added the father’s battered knuckle to contribute to the overall theme of darkness. The father’s battered knuckle allows the reader to think that the scarred knuckle is from beating the boy. The father’s battered knuckle combined with the grip on the boy’s wrist provide more hints to support the father’s abusive character in this poem. 

The boy’s father was obviously too drunk to notice what he was doing nor did he seem to care. The father is made out to be careless multiple times throughout the poem. What could have been a sweet family moment was actually filled with drunkenness and darkness. Lines eleven through twelve exemplify the father’s lack of caring the extremely well. “At every step you missed, My right ear scraped a buckle” (Roethke 91). These lines have a few underlying meanings that show the message that Roethke is trying to get across. First of all, as the father and the son dance, the boy’s ear repeatedly scrapes his father’s belt buckle. The father was completely unaware that he kept scraping his son’s ear. This clearly shows the lack of caring by the father and total disregard for anyone besides himself. The belt itself contributes to the dark tone because the belt is historically known as a spanking mechanism. Spanking implies that there is a history of abuse between the father and the boy. Lastly, the boy goes along with the dance even though he is being injured by the sharp belt buckle. This shows that the boy was too afraid to say that his father was hurting him. It was as if the boy was used to things like this with his father and he knew he should not speak up about being hurt. These few lines of the poem show that the boy’s father does not care about his son’s feelings and that there is a history of abuse. 

The dark theme of My Papa’s Waltz is shown through the abusive relationship between a father and his son. The poem first introduces the father dancing with his son in a rough manner and the father was too drunk to notice his son was struggling while dancing with him. Dancing is thought to be a happy family moment but in this poem, it is a struggle for the boy. Next, the boy is grasped by his father and the boy shows that he is scared of his father’s strength. Finally, the boy’s ear is constantly scraped by his father’s belt buckle while dancing but his father is too drunk and careless to notice. My Papa’s Waltz has a clear message of abuse that is shown by Roethke’s underlying meanings of dark words, tone, and imagery created throughout the text. 