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Literary Techniques In The Poem My Papa's Waltz

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The waltz, a smooth controlled dance is used to summarize a rocky, unstable relationship with and abusive father in the poem My Papa’s Waltz. A small boy is dazed by the whirlwind of the evenings with a father controlled by whiskey. The author shares his experiences as a child in this poem.
The poem starts off by talking about the scent of a large amount of Whiskey on the father’s breath. The poem says “Could make a small boy dizzy” (line 2). This shows that the father had more than a small swig, but in fact so much that the small boy is woozy because of the strong aroma. Also, people get dizzy after spinning and moving fast and chaotically. You are unable to think or focus. Dizzy shows how he feels when around his father, like everything is chaotic, spinning, and unclear. Also, the poem refers to the boy “hanging on like death”, (line 3) the author uses this haunting word not only to show a strong feeling, but also a haunting memory. When we hear the word “death” we get an eerie, haunting, creepy feeling. These feelings could describe how the small boy feels when around his dad.
As the poem continues on, the rough relationship moves in to the …show more content…

This explains the image of the father’s hand with a torn or bruised knuckle. Many may assume that this is from work or farming, but if the father is an alcoholic then careless drunkenness could have caused the battered hand. Also, the poem countiues to keep up the metaphor of waltzing. The authors says “every step I missed my right ear scraped a buckle” (line 11-12). This seems that the young son might scraped the father’s belt buckle while teaching him the waltz. Although, the waltz is a very controlled and slow dance, if the father is drunk he will not be controlled enough to dance these precise steps. This stumbling may have caused the young boy to become off beat and slid into the father’s rough

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Chiu Ching 3U (8) My Papa’s Waltz Questions 1. Comment on the simile in the first stanza. (3 marks) The simile used in the first stanza is “I hung on like death”(3). The next line, “Such waltzing was not easy”(4) suggests that the father and son’s boisterous, wild “romping”(5) around was difficult for the child, and he had to hang on tightly because the father was romping around drunkenly and did not hold onto him well.

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In “My Papa’s Waltz,” poet Theodore Roethke uses sensory details and ambiguous language to persuade both the boy and the reader that the boy still loves his father, despite him being an alcoholic. On the third sentence of the first stanza, Roethke uses ambiguous language by stating: “But I hung on like death. Such waltzing was not easy.” Although this plainly means that the boy was holding onto his father without ease, it can be interpreted in another way; the boy still loves his father, even though it is hard to love him with his alcoholism at times, and the boy still loves his father very much. The boy is reflecting on this idea while waltzing with his

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The poem My Papa Waltz by the title sounds like it could be sweet and loving. The poem is actually very dark in my opinion. In the poem the father is drunk, stumbling and hurting the boy. Even though they could just be having a good time, running around, and the father could also be trying to teach the boy to grow up, I believe that the poem is about a boy being abused by his father. Because he also states that the father is so drunk that his breath could get a small boy drunk.

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The imagery of “My Papas Waltz” can clearly be understood as a father waltzing with his son in the kitchen, tapping the beat too his son’s head, and his ear scraping his buckle against his child’s ear. The poem is playful when the poem says, “At every step you missed/ My right ear scraped a buckle” (Roethke lines 11-12).

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Many individuals believe that hands tell a lot about a person, such as their job or even their class. For instance, rough hands might indicate that the person works in construction and soft hand might indicate a person of high-class who is able to take care of his or her skin. The most common reason for cracked and aching hands is cold weather, which implies that the father in “Those Winter Sundays” is a blue-collar worker who performs his job outside. This contrasts with the battered hands seen in “My Papa’s Waltz,” which indicates some form of violence. The harsh words in both “My Papa’s

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A father and son romping around in the kitchen as the mother is looking. While others may view this poem as a family torn by a father's misfortunes. In line 1, the word “Whiskey” gives some characteristics of the fathers crooked ways. Continuing on, the signs of foul play and roughness with his hands, "battered on one knuckle", and "a palm caked hard by dirt".(11-14) More so, some of “Papa” few escapes most likely consist of a drink when he gets home from a rough day. Concluding, “Papa”makes his own family feel very uncomfortable around him.

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In the final analysis, most readers of this poem tend to deduce a dark theme of physical violence due to its tone, word choice and imagery. Nonetherless, Roethke balances positive and negative tones of the poem to give it a rich and ambiguous quality. The exceeding tendency to paint the picture of child abuse deprives it, of this quality. “My Papa’s Waltz,” illustrates a special and powerful moment, shared between a father and a son through a waltz.

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Another example of this, in the last stanza, lines 15-16, is made as Roethke notes “[t]hen waltzed me off to bed/[s]till clinging to your shirt.” The last lines of the poem show the true relationship at the end of all the confusion lost in the midst of the middle of the poem. The father loves his son and waltzes him to bed and the boy, loving his father, slings to his shirt to stay with him. The poem expresses the confusion and complexity created in a relationship such as this one between father and son, but at the end, the confusion is unnecessary and what prevails is not the negatives, but instead the positive aspect of

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Meanwhile, Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” the speaker implies abuse through a metaphor about dancing, where, in lines 5, 6, and 11- 13 the speaker vaguely mentions abuse, saying “We romped until the pans/ slid from the kitchen shelf”, “at every step you missed/ my right ear scraped a buckle./ you beat time on my head.” These lines imply the father is abusive, boisterously beating the child in the kitchen so much so that pans fell, without actually saying so. In both poems, the speaker experiences abuse from the father figure in their

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My papa’s waltz his/her dad was drunk while his son/daughter trying to teach waltz and in Grape sherbet his/her dad made recipe of swirled snow. “But I hung on like death/ Such waltzing was not easy” (line 3 and 4). “Dad appears with his

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The father/son relationship are shown in both poems. Both are adults reflecting on their past. “My Papa’s Waltz” is about how the father would dance daily with the son. Although it was painful when he sometimes missed a step and his “right ear scraped a buckle”, this was a memorable memory for the son (Line 8). The poem has a happy tone of the sons childhood days.

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It reads as follows, “the hand that held my wrist was battered on one knuckle;” (9-10) again, we see the choice of words. Roethke did not use the words “calloused hands, rough hands,” He chose “battered.” As in, this was not the first time the father had struck his son. Upon the ending of stanza four, we come across these lines, “at every step you missed, my right ear scraped a buckle.” (11-12)

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One symbol in “My Papa’s Waltz” would be the dancing in general. We can easily see that the boy is having a hard time doing that dance. “My right ear scraped a buckle” (line 12). “You beat time on my head” (line 13). Although the dance was difficult for the boy, he still hung on to his father.

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This portrays emotional abuse that explores the possibilities of a toxic father-son dynamic. The line “But I hung on like death” then continues to imply that the father’s careless attitude is hurting the little boy internally. These images give insightful pictures to an unhealthy relationship caused by psychological violence. The speaker then adds a more positive image of dancing with, “Such waltzing was not easy” and “We romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf,”. Although most associate Waltzing as an enjoyable dance, it is in reality a metaphor that represents the relationship he has with his father.

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When singing the song whiskey is trying to symbolize an item that could help forget the bad times. The word “lullaby,” symbolizes how they are put to sleep as in both are dead and now they can rest in peace as people do when they sleep and dream. By using imagery and symbolism the reader gets a better comprehension on the story being

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