“My Papa’s Waltz” is a poem written by Theodore Roethke in 1942. Roethke uses a few unfamiliar words and he changes his grammatical mood frequently when expressing complex emotions. The narrator loves his father but he is full of fear as well. On the one hand, he values the degage and brief happiness that comes from the dancing with his father and him. On the other hand, he is still afraid of his father losing his mind and doing some violent action to him. Roethke switches his rhythm, tune and strain through the poem painting an intriguing, subtle and haunting picture.

The ways Roethke uses words are tactful. At the beginning, he says “the whiskey on your breath” (line1). Roethke uses the word whiskey to describe breath, intensively indicating the inebriate situation of this father. This use of hyperbole also helps pave the way for the remainder of the text at the same time. Also, instead of using smelly, pungent or strong, Roethke uses “dizzy” to describe the speaker’s feeling, so the readers can imagine how drunken his father is. Then, he uses “hung on like death” (line 3) to give the image of dancing. The word “death” indicates his suffering through the dance because a waltz should be smooth and enjoyable. Next, Roethke “such waltzing was not easy” (line 4). “Not easy” is a simple phrase but it expresses two different layers of meaning. First, on the surface, “not easy” tells the reader footsteps and movement between the narrator and his father are hard. Second, it shows the narrator doesn’t want to dance with his drunken father because of fear, so “not easy” means the relationship between him and his father is not easy to keep. At the third part, Roethke uses “was battered” (line 10) to describe his father’s knuckle. The word “battered” triggers the readers’ imagination. Before readers finish the poem, they probably think the father’s knuckle was hurt during a drunken brawl. However, when they finish reading this poem, they may think that harm happened in daily work, because the author later mentions, “with a palm caked hard by dirt” (line 14), which indicates his father is a hard worker. By this depiction, Roethke sets a great suspense for readers. What’s more, the author’s use of verbs is very clever. The “scraped” in “my right ear scraped a buckle” (line 12) and the “clinging” in “still clinging to your shirt” (line 16) show Roethke’s antipathy and fear of his drunken father. Especially the word “clinging” presents an image of struggle during the dance. Thus, the "dance is very hard. 

The change of tone is also the highlight of this poem. Roethke uses this change to express the inner contradiction of the speaker’s heart, and his love and fear of his father. In the first half of this poem, through the use of “the whiskey” (line 1), “could make a small boy dizzy” (line 2), “hung on like death” (line 3) and “my mother’s countenance” (line 7), these words and phrase seem to have laid a negative tone on this poem. However, in the last two parts, the author turns to say “battered on one knuckle” (line 10), “with a palm caked hard by dirt” (line 14) and “waltzed me off to bed” (line 15), which make readers feel the speaker’s sympathy and affection to his father. Therefore, through two different tunes, the reader can figure the conflicting emotions between the narrator and his father. 

Next, the imagery in this poem is artful and intriguing. “Waltz” is one of the most important images. The process of the dance is the development of the relationship between the narrator and his father. The waltz actually is a kind of dance that is gentle and smooth, so the reader can suppose that the narrator wants to describe a harmony relationship with his father. However, along with waltz, whiskey is also the main image. Whiskey paves the full text and gives the figure of the father as a drunken man. Contrasting to waltz, whiskey contributes to the feeling of melancholy and depression in this poem. Roethke uses these two contrary images in order to express the love and fear, excitation and worry.

Roethke wrote this poem in order to show the sympathy and love between the narrator and his father, although there are some forceful scenes in the poem. The reason why is that, first, the describing of his father’s hand and the action his father waltzed him off to bed, showing that he is a good father. Second, the title of this poem is “My Papa’s Waltz”. Roethke used waltz to describe this kind of dance to indicate a pleasant atmosphere. Then, the reason why the author picks some forcible words to present his father’s action through the dance is that Roethke was willing to indicate the speaker’s father was under too much pressure from supporting his family, so he finally released himself with whiskey. On the other hand, Roethke described his father as a gruff man after drinking in order to expose the cruelty of life and express his respect and sympathy to his father.

“My Papa’s Waltz” is a kind of narrative poem which presents a sweet but forcible image of dancing that expresses the author’s love and sympathy to his father and also indicates the hardships of life. 

Finally, if the readers back to the last sentence of the poem, they can figure that the word “clinging” is actually used by Roethke to express the affection and miss to his father. 
