        Words can dictate the theme of any piece of writing. If you’re writing a child’s story you would use positive, happy, and encouraging words, while writing a murder novel the words would tend to be more negative, gruesome, and violent. In “My Papas Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, he uses a mix of words with mainly negative connotations such as “Scraped”, “Death”, “Battered” and “Romped”. The poem is a sad and negative story about an alcoholic father and his relationship with his kid.

        In “My Papa’s Waltz” there is some positive moments even though the rest of the poem is saddening, and difficult. The place where I see this the most is in the last stanza of the poem. Roethke wrote “Then waltzed me off to bed/ Still clinging to your shirt.”. This is positive because instead of the child running off or getting hurt, he still knew he could cling to his father. If the child was actually scared and felt abused he would not cling to his father as they danced to bed. Most likely the child would be scared and if he was then he wouldn’t be able to sleep. The significance of this stanza is that it is the last two lines of the poem. Since it is like this it makes a strong statement simply because after all that happened with his father he still trusted him to take him and put him to bed. The positivity that occurred is not enough to overcome the strong negativity theme.

        Right from beginning the poem starts on a negative tone, talking about how “The whiskey on your breath /Could make a small boy dizzy:” (Roethke Line 1). This introduces the father in the poem and reveals that he is intoxicated because he has been drinking whiskey. Not only that but the amount he had was too much causing him to have “Whiskey on your breath”. The boy is used to the smell and amount of alcohol his father has that is why he uses the word “Could” because the boy is not getting dizzy but if he wasn’t used to it he would be. 

        The mother in the poem shows that she does not enjoy this dancing that is happening because the father has been drinking and is making a mess. The son describing the event says they “Romped until the pans /Slid from the kitchen shelf.” (Roethke, Lines 5-6). This is just pointing out that the dad is intoxicated and can not dance without bumping into cabinets or the kitchen shelf. The mom is clearly upset as Roethke writes “My mother’s countenance /Could not unfrown itself.” She doesn’t like the dancing and has the look on her face that she is upset with what is occurring. 

        Roethke describes how his father held his wrist and not his hand. This can show abuse because when you hold someone like that it is a signal showing them you have more power or that you are the “alpha” in the relationship. The kid is getting hurt because “At every step you missed /My right ear scraped a buckle” (Roethke, Line 11-12). The father has drank too much and now when he is dancing he is missing the steps. He is hurting his child accidently because he can not dance straight. 

        The final instance that there is a negative tone is right before the only two positive lines in the final stanza. They read as “You beat time on my head /With a palm caked hard by dirt.” (Roethke, Line 13-14). If the father was not being abusive he would simply tap the time, maybe not on the head as well. When you get beat it is not something soft but usually includes moderate pain. The father has drank too much to understand that he could be hurting his child by beating along to the music on his child’s head. His dads hand is described as “Caked hard by dirt” (Roethke, Line 14)

        This poem has a large negative feel to it and it should. The whole poem is about a son getting beaten and abused by his alcoholic father. Even though there is one instance that might make it positive it is not enough.
