In the poem “My Papa’s Waltz”, Theodore Roethke explores the ideas of how alcoholism affected him as a child. Roethke uses the motif of dancing to show how the father’s drinking affected him when he was young. The author does this by comparing the drinking to a waltz, using rhythm. A waltz is a traditional dance in three-four time performed by a couple who as a pair turn rhythmically around and around as they progress around the dance floor. The author uses words with ambiguous meaning to help develop the themes in his poems. Roethke also uses the mother as a way to add complexity to his poem. Looking at Roethke’s relationship with his father and mother, we can see how the theme of waltzing is connected which is important because it shows how his father’s drinking affected him. 

In the poem Roethke uses the motif of dancing to show how the father’s abuse affected child in the poem. He does this throughout the poem by using words that have ambiguous meanings, and can be taken as terms of abuse or dance terminology. This motif shows up in every aspect of Roethke’s poem. In the poem he says, “You beat time on my head/ With a palm caked hard by dirt/ Then waltzed me off to bed/ still clinging to your shirt” (13-16). When Roethke uses words like time, and waltzed, they add complexity to his poem, because they can be taken ambiguously. Some of these words seem oddly used because the reader is unsure what the authors intentions were when he wrote the poem. It creates space for the reader to figure out a meaning of the poem for themselves. In addition, Roethke uses these ambiguous words and phrases because he was just a child and was unsure what everything going on around him meant. It is interesting to the reader to see how Roethke writes as if everything that was happening to the child was normal. It almost sets up the reader to believe that the ‘dance’ the child and his father did was their version of normal, and possibly how the family covered up the father’s alcoholism. 

Another way that Roethke’s relationship with his father is explored is through the motif of dance and through rhythm. In the waltz there is three four time. This is interesting because each line of the poem has three beats, and when the poem is read aloud it almost sounds like a song the reader could waltz to. This helps the reader understand what it was like to be the child when his father came home. It also shows that Roethke felt like the father’s alcoholism was like a never ending dance, and that the child had no choice but to just keep going with it. 

When Roethke adds the mother to the poem it creates an interesting layer because the mother has a face of,” countenance/ could not unfrown itself” (7-8). This is important because the mother feels unhappy, because like the child, she cannot get out of the dance that the three of them are in together. Furthermore, Roethke uses three four time, again when he speaks about his mother. Adding the third character to the poem creates complexity because three beats in a waltz keep the song going, and three characters in the poem allow the fathers alcoholism to continue. Roethke’s relationship with his mother is also interesting because he only mentions her for a second, but it gives the reader a look into the dynamic of the family. It seems that Roethke cares for his mother, noticing how she is feeling by looking at her facial expression, but he is just a child so he doesn’t know how to solve the problem that is happening and may have never had any other family dynamic to compare his to.   This shows yet another way that his father’s alcoholism affects him.

Roethke is very meticulous in his poem and connects everything together nicely. The repetition in the poem is found in Roethke’s word choice, and can be seen when takes normal words and changes them into dance terminology giving the reader the job of deciding what the word really means. Roethke uses this repetition of ambiguous words, along with the use of three four time in his poem, to show the reader what he was feeling as a child. Roethke felt as though his only option was to keep dancing, with his parents. This shows the reader important details about the relationship that Roethke had with his parents, because all three of them kept dancing, and couldn’t stop themselves from continuing their pattern. Roethke adds complexity to his poem when he continuously crosses the two motifs together. This shows the reader how complex his life was, everything was always moving, like a waltz, and he was always scared to mess up, or misbehave. This shows how intense the relationship with his parents was because if Roethke wasn’t behaving the way he should his father would, “beat time on my head” (13). This is significant because the beating Roethke received shaped the way he behaved around his father, and also showed how helpless his mother was when she was upset, but did nothing to fix her situation. 

In conclusion, Roethke uses many motifs to make his reader understand the situation that he was in. He also uses ambiguous word choice to show how as a child he wasn’t really sure what was happening around him. Roethke also uses the waltz, and three four time to show the complexity of his family dynamic, as well as his relationship with his mother. Roethke also uses his relationship with his parents to show how his father’s drinking and overall actions affected him. Roethke makes it clear in the poem that him and his family are used to this type of repetitive dance that goes on when his father is drunk. The experience that Roethke shares in the poem are important because they show the reader what it is like to live in a family with an alcoholic.  
