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Meaning Of My Papa's Waltz By Roethke

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When it comes to the topic of “My Papa’s Waltz” many readers readily agree the poem is about an abusive father. Where this argument usually ends, however, is on the question of what the truthful meaning of the poem is about. Whereas some are convinced the poem consists of constant abuse, others sustain the poem is a son’s nostalgic memories with his father. The author’s message in the poem becomes clear when one fully examines the context of the poem such as diction used in the poem. As Roethke mentions the word “beat” it immediately gives the reader a negative notion of the poem. It is clear that the“beat” of “time” his father beats on his “head” refers to the musical beat in a Waltz. In effect, causes his father to tap on his head.
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The poem My Papa’s Waltz by Theodore Roethke, came from a collection of poems titled The Lost Son. All of these poems portray Roethke as a child torn between admiration of his father and disgust for his father’s actions. This particular poem reflects on the struggles Roethke endured in his childhood. When reading My Papa’s Waltz, the reader sees the father’s behavior through Roethke’s childhood memory. Rhyme, rhythm, irony, paradox and word choice are all effects that Roethke uses to convey his feelings towards his father.

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Poems can contain a plethora of concepts, feelings, and meanings which either the speaker or reader can bring forth and relate with. Theodore Roethke’s poem “My Papa’s Waltz” brings this into consideration, as the poem is oftentimes seen as an autobiographical account of Roethke’s own childhood experience. Having a conflicted relationship with his father, Roethke had written many poems about personal memories, mainly portraying a tension marked with both love and fear. Theodore Roethke utilizes rhythmic structure, symbolism, and ambiguity in “My Papa’s Waltz” to construct the implications of a temperamental relationship between father and son.

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Meanwhile, the speaker’s tone and word usage in “My Papa’s Waltz” conveys several interpretations such as a father’s love and devotion toward his son while, simultaneously, showing a son’s reflection of love and resentment toward his father in later years. One interpretation of Roethke’s work is in respect to the father: he is a fun-loving, devoted father, since he makes his son’s trip to bed interesting by “waltzing.” The author’s word choice he uses for imagery in the poem’s title acoustically paints a fun picture in the reader’s mind initially by referring to a papa’s waltz. The words papa and waltz have an initial connotation of affection and happy, respectfully, which invokes the reader to believe “Papa” is affectionate and has an energetic or happy walk about him. Subsequently, the speaker says, “We romped until the pans / Slid from the kitchen shelf;”

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Also it is depicted how the father is cruel and at the same time gentle. Booby Fang , a literary analyst, showed how this poem can have mixed feelings of interpretation. He mentions how the poem is like a seesaw where the elements of joy, which Fang notes as the figure of the waltz and the rhythm it has, balances with elements of fear which he mentions happens through the effects of diction used in the novel such as the words like romped, scraped, beat, and whiskey. The narrator in the poem is remembering an incident in his childhood which shows that thet there were qualities in his father that were good and bad. He mentions that the achievement of this poem is that it permits readers to access such powerful memories in their own lives in ways consistent with the words and construction of the

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