Arguing for one’s interpretation of something seems pretty easy until they hear someone else’s interpretation of it before they were allowed to share their own and suddenly one immediately feels that their interpretation is essentially wrong. Writing, however, about an interpretation of a text is by far a lot easier because there is not someone to stop the text that is being written which therefore means that one can express his or her opinion freely without interruption. Taking Roethke’s piece, “My Papa’s Waltz,” one may interpret it as a boy being abused by his father, a fight between father and son, or as the title implies, simply a dance between a child and father. In this essay, I will be taking apart the poem stanza by stanza and even line by lie to convey my interpretation of the piece as a whole. In each section, one can follow how I reached my overall meaning of this poem which is the meaning of family, love, and the innocence of children.

Beginning with the title of the poem, “My Papa’s Waltz,” a reader may suggest that there may be dancing or some heartfelt theme that will be presented in the poem. When I think of waltzing, I think of a man and a woman that are hand in hand engaging in a dance that is not necessarily romantic in nature, but it could be. Continuing on with the very first stanza, the narrator states, “The whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy” (Roethke 90). Whiskey is a pretty heavy liquor and if someone can smell it on another person’s breath then that person has been drinking a lot of it. Being that they have consumed more than normal amounts of alcohol, one can say that this person is drunk. The smell was so strong that the narrator even claims it could make a small child dizzy because of its odor. Then, the narrator says that even though the smell of liquor is strong, they continued to hold on to them because “such waltzing was not easy” (Roethke 90). Initially, I thought this poem was going on a slightly romantic route because I imagined a woman holding on to a man she was interested in and dancing with at a club. However, I grew to know that this was a young boy clinging to his father before or during a fight that he was having with him. Waltzing, in this poem can be viewed as a symbol for the roundabout way a fight happens. It can also be viewed as the way the father is walking and stumbling about because of his alcohol intake. Also, looking at the rhythm of the poem, it takes the place of a steady beat of a song you could possibly waltz to.

Now the second stanza is where the poem to a turn and made me rethink my meaning of the poem and look more into what was going on. The narrator says he and his father “romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf” (Roethke 91). Clearly, they are not in a club dancing together but maybe in a home in the kitchen. Something rough and rowdy is taking place because things are falling. Romp has a couple definitions that could be used in this poem’s context: engaging in sexual activity, to win or do something without effort, and to play roughly. Looking back at the first stanza, the first definition could be put into play if there were to be a romantic theme held here. However, proceeding on with this stanza the narrator says that his “mother’s countenance could not unfrown itself” (Roethke 91). Here is where I knew that something funny was happening. Here the author puts in personification of the mother’s facial expression, it was frowning and wouldn’t stop. I questioned why his mother would be so upset and why they were in the kitchen roughing up each other. I then thought to myself that perhaps the father and the kid are playing too much, they messed up the kitchen, and then the mother is sitting in the corner looking at them disappointedly because they have now made a mess that she essentially has to clean up. 

The third stanza finally reveals to us what is really going on. This stanza is where you can see that there is abuse or a fight taking place and that there is not a really good relationship between the father and child. Using imagery, the narrator states that “the hand that held my wrist was battered on one knuckle” (Roethke 91). The reader can imagine what the hand looks like, all beat up and scratched. Hands get like this either from manual labor, fighting, or in this case abuse. Looking at the action of someone holding onto someone else’s wrist, we can gather that they are not dancing or enjoying themselves but there is something rough and mean going on.  The next line goes on to say “at every step you missed my right ear scraped a buckle” (Roethke 91). One can gather that this is indeed a child because he does not reach the old man high enough to actively engage in this brawl that they may be having. His ear is scraped by the father’s belt buckle so the kid only comes to his waist. The narrator also mentions him missing steps, so the father is indeed drunk and stumbling to beat on the kid. 

Finally, in the last stanza the narrator says that the father “beat time on my head with a palm caked hard by dirt” (Roethke 91). Time can have various meanings, but the one that I think the author was trying to use is the one in the sense of existence in the past, present, and future. The father is beating time on the child’s head because this scenario may have happened before and it is bringing back the memories of the other times in the past and the ones that will be made again in the future. The father’s hand has dirt on it so he may do some type of manual labor that requires him to get down and dirty. The next and final lines says that the child’s father “then waltzed me off to bed still clinging to your shirt” (Roethke 91). We see the word waltz again, but it is not used like it was in the first stanza. The first stanza refers to waltzing as some type of brawl as the reader moves forward and gathers the clues of what is going on. This last line uses it as a means of the actions to bring the child into bed for the night after he has been abused by his father. The child, however, is still clinging to the father’s shirt showing that even though the father has done something really bad to him and hurt him he still craves his father’s love. 

Looking back to my what I said before, I reached the interpretation that this is indeed abuse of a child by his father. The meaning of childhood innocence comes about in the last stanza when the child still wants his father to care for him even though he was just beat around by him. Children always tend to go back to their parents because they know that they are supposed to love and care for them. Think about getting spanked for doing something wrong but later that night going back to a parent because your tummy was grumbling from being hungry. I also saw a negative meaning of family. When I think of family I think of genetically similar people coming together as one to love and care for each other. This family may be getting abused by the father whenever he gets drunk. The mother was in the corner standing there frowning and acting helpless. This is not a true meaning of family and togetherness. This family is scared of the person who wears the pants in the home. There also is a corrupted meaning of love in the poem. The father “shows” his love by beating on the kid and then carrying him off to bed that night to show that he still cares about the kid. The kid shows his love to the father by going back to him after getting a beaten and perhaps is hoping that things will get better for the family. Overall, my interpretation of the poem is one of a child being abused by his father and it may happen often or not. I also saw meanings, or themes, of family, love, and childhood innocence. 
