In, “My Papa’s Waltz”, Theodore Roethke expresses the love for his father despite his actions with the use of Diction, Imagery, Ethos, and Intensifying context. Roethke does a great job of showing the love between him and his fatherbut also expresses the strength it took to deal with his actions and his lifestyle. Writing this poem as an adult and reminiscing on this memory also gives the audience a chance to re-read the poem and look at it at a different perspective. 

Roethke effectively describes his childhood memory by gradually strengthening his diction and rhyme scheme throughout the poem. Roethke starts the poem by introducing whiskey into the first line. The title, “My Papa’s Waltz”, now has a negative connotation to it. By simply adding whiskey to the first line, he opens the eyes to the readers creating a visual image that, “Papa’s Waltz”, may be deeper than the average waltz. The second line, “Could make a small boy dizzy”, refers to Roethke himself as a small child (line 2, Roethke). He then follows with, “But I hung on like death: Such Waltzing was not easy” (lines 3-4). These lines portray the waltzing getting more aggressive and harder to keep up with. This waltzing might initially seem as if it just a drunken stumble by Roethke’s father, but is actually referring to the father-son relationship and Roethke’s father’s lifestyle. Being an innocent child, his father’s actions are not seen in the same way that his mother sees them. “My mother’s countenance could not unfrown itself” (lines 7-8). His mother knew what was really happening and was aware at the time that he was intoxicated and was displeased with how aggressive and clumsy he was being.  Between the love for his father and his innocence, Roethke clings on through the roughness while his mother sees it in a more mature manner and cannot hang on as he does. The poem has an ABAB rhyme scheme but contained in the first two stanzas are slant rhymes. Slant rhymes are words that are very close to rhyming but actually do not. The rest of the stanzas consist of strong rhyming words. As the rhyming becomes more sharp, so does the diction and context in the poem. The diction in the last two stanzas contributes to the rise in intensity and aggression. These stanzas contain words such as, battered, scraped, beat. These words carry a rough connotation and are hidden indicators to the truth behind the memories that Roethke is recalling. “At every step you missed my right ear scraped a buckle” (lines 11-12). Roethke is not literally saying that his ear scraped a buckle, but uses this metaphor to express that he is even getting blamed for the mishaps that his father runs into or creates. By gradually intensifying the events and actions of his father through diction and rhyme scheme, the reader is led closer to the underlying truth behind the waltzing.

As a child we are innocent and unaware of all of the events that happen around us.  Roethke establishes an appeal to ethos by speaking from a child’s point of view with an adult understanding. He appeals to any of the readers who have shared the same experience with a family member as a child. By referring to his father as, “Papa”, the reader is drawn into the perspective of Roethke as a child and can then truly understand his naïve outlook when looking back on these experiences. Although there is no exact sign of abuse, Roethke’s choice of diction and metaphors hint that there was abusive behavior within this waltzing. This creates an even stronger appeal to people who have also tried this method to hide abuse in their families’. Waltzing was Roethke’s way to look past his father’s actions and mask them with something that would bring a sense of nostalgia to the bond they shared.

The tone of this poem is light and reminiscent, but it’s the undertone that reaches out to the reader the most. Under the nostalgic tone lies the reality of the situation. The situation that is not seen in the eyes of Roethke as a child but as Roethke as he writes this. The imagery corresponds with this undertone and portrays an imagine that we can see from a non-child perspective. “We romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf” (lines 5-6). These lines suggest that Roethke’s father was being way too rough after drinking by stumbling and being aggressive while knocking over everything. Roethke states, “You beat time on my head with a palm caked hard by dirt” (lines 13-14). This line isn’t stating that Roethke is getting physically abused but suggested that Roethke is feeling the pain in more of a mental way. “The hand that held my wrist was battered on one knuckle” (lines 9-10). When visualizing a waltz, we would assume the dancing would proceed with holding hands with one another. The holding of the wrist evokes a sense of empowerment over Roethke. The powerful and descriptive imagery throughout the poem brings the reader into the reality of Roethke’s difficulty with hanging on to his father. 

This poem is short but Roethke does a significant job at showing his theme through the use of Diction, Imagery, Ethos, and Intensifying context to put the reader into the memory and allow them to feel the same emotions as he did while going through all of this. The vivid imagery sucks the reader into the blurred reality that Roethke tried so hard to disguise. The sharp and strong diction allows the reader to feel the power that Roethke’s father has over him. Roethke’s appeal to ethos correlates to both of these which creates a credibility for him to relate to any other person that has experienced an event like this. When initially looking at the title of this poem, “My Papa’s Waltz”, the reader could imagine a reminiscent story about the authors childhood and how him and his father used to happily dance their way through life. Roethke wants to look at it like that is how it was, but the underlying message hidden beneath the figurative language shows that this is not how the past truly was. The main symbol in this poem, the waltz, served its purpose to show how the relationship between Roethke and his father truly was. Even though the waltz, or Roethke’s relationship with his father, got progressively harder and more difficult to keep up with, Roethke stayed strong because he loved his father. That is the true theme to this poem. That no matter how hard things became with his father, the unconditional love that Roethke shared with his father forced him to keep waltzing. 
