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Analysis Of My Papa's Waltz By Theodore Roethke

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It is clear from the beginning of “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke that the author intended for the poem to give a negative connotation to the reader. The poem not only involved a seemingly alcoholic father, but also a small boy whose experience was shaped by his father’s actions. The scene depicted is negative because of the way he is swung, hit on the head, and scraped by a belt buckle. The father, unaware of how rough he handles his son, swings his child around like he is on a merry-go-round. This is shown in the quote “But I hung on like death,” (line 3). The word “death” implies that the boy is not enjoying his time dancing, which contributes to the notion that this experience with his father is negative. This quote shows the difficulty the boy has when hanging on to his …show more content…

In the quote “You beat time on my head / With a palm caked hard by dirt,” (13-14), it is shown that the boy must endure getting hit on the head in order to continue the dance with his father. The imagery provided within these lines can also support the idea that the father is an alcoholic or abusive. Immediately after being hit on the head, the boy and his father dance off to bed as if nothing has happened; which leads to the suggestion that this “dance” is fairly common. Overall, the moments captured in “My Papa’s Waltz” have a negative effect on the boy because of the way he is struck on the head, swung around the room, and grazed by a belt buckle. Despite the negative aspects of the dance, one can conclude that the boy and the father seem to have a difficult, yet somewhat loving relationship. At the end of the poem, the boy persistently clings onto the father’s shirt. The boy must love his father, because of the efforts he contributes in order to continue the waltz. However, the relationship between the boy and the father is toxic because of the mistreatment of the

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743 Words | 3 Pages

The lines that supported my reasons was “The hand that held my wrist” and “Was battered on one knuckle.” In line 15 when the speaker exclaimed: “Then waltzed me off to bed” makes readers think the father could have beats his son and send him to bed. In my point a view I think that the father and son danced for a long time until they was tired and and couldn’t dance anymore. The father then sends his son to his bedroom. The last line of the fourth stanza is so interesting.

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792 Words | 4 Pages

Theodore Roethke’s poem “My Papa’s Waltz” describes the relationship between the speaker and his father. Throughout the poem’s four stanzas, Roethke purposefully uses ambiguous language, imagery, and metaphors to express different scenarios that provide room for interpretation. The situation is either the speaker’s recount of a happy moment dancing with his beloved father, or, a recollection of a child that is terrorized by an abusive father. Roethke uses the waltz as a metaphor and extends this imagery through specific language to further develop the poem’s vague meaning to disguise the horrors or enhance the joys of this memory.

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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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871 Words | 4 Pages

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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578 Words | 3 Pages

Waltzing Through the Pain Imagine growing up in a house where your father was drunk and your mother would keep quiet, all you have to hold on to are the good memories. This is what it was like for the little boy growing up in the poem “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke. The young boy loved his father dearly even though he would get beat by his drunk father. When his father died things changed, all he has left is the good memories. The boy struggles to cope with his father's passing, the boy is having a negative experience.

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357 Words | 2 Pages

¨My Papa's Waltz¨ by Theodore Roethke is a poem about a mother and a ¨small boy¨ who are abused by an aggressive father. In fact, Roethke uses a great amount of descriptive language to make us feel this way about the poem. For example, on line 5 and 6 ¨[w]e romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf ¨ gives us a negative picture in our minds of someone being brutally abused. Perhaps, the author writes this poem for the reason of him suffering with depression and mental illness. The author always had a rough relationship with his father; Roethke's father died when he was just 15 years old, which was a painful event in his life.

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1340 Words | 6 Pages

If the boy and the father are waltzing, then the boy could have gotten dizzy by the dance since his father is bigger than him and the description of the father would be that he smelled like whisky. The irony in these lines show the speaker’s descripted memory of his father and how he had become dizzy during their waltz. “My Papa’s Waltz” is written in iambic trimester. It meter is almost sounds like a waltz tempo. This is because Papa is waltzing with

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The reason that this has negative effect on the boy is because he does not even realize that his father is not treating him right. Roethke writes, “Still clinging to your shirt” (16). This line shows that the young boy still stayed near his father even though the father was being abusive to him. This just goes to show that the persona of the poem thought that this sort of behavior was normal from a parent. “My Papa’s Waltz” highlights the ways a young person sees a parent who is stern and somewhat abusive.

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My Papas Waltz” by Theodore Roethke My Papas Waltz" by Theodore Roethke can be translated in numerous ways. The poem could be translated as a father manhandling his youngster because of liquor addiction. A boy getting on the dance floor the dance floor with his father is the way I translated the ballad when Theodore portrays the night, I envisioned a father hitting the dance floor with his kid and having some good times following a prolonged day at work.

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The rhyme scheme mimics the “musical beat in a waltz composition” using an iambic trimeter line (three beats). In other words, when the author writes “You beat time on my head,” he means the father kept time, or the beat of the waltz, by patting the head of his son. As noted earlier, the diction of the author causes one to image an abused child, with words such as “romped” and “beat.” Additionally, Roethke writes “The hand that held my wrist was battered on one knuckle;” and “You beat time on my head with a palm caked hard by dirt,” suggests the father’s hands are damaged because of maltreating his child. However, we know the poet’s father owns and works at a greenhouse, which is why his hands would be “caked hard by dirt,” and explain why he has “battered [knuckles].”

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1119 Words | 5 Pages

My Papa’s Waltz Theodore Roethke is one of the many poets that came to popularity during the 1940s through 1960s and he continues to be one of the most well known poets of this time period. Unlike other poets of this time, Roethke´s work never followed the highly intellectual approach to words and poems. Instead, the poetry of Roethke borders a lyric-like conffessional of dark experiences wrapped up in light-hearted words. In many collections of his poems, one may find that Roethke coats childhood memories with a warm rhythm full of symbolism and vivid words.

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324 Words | 2 Pages

I examined "My Papa's Waltz" and the impression I get from the poem is that through the symbolism, dialect, and the imagery in this work it's a story of the affection between a child and his dad. I feel this is the theme through a few unique lines of the poem. The figurative language is offered in lines like line 3, “but I hung on like death ", the kid clung to his shirt not on account of trepidation but rather he would not like to fall off while dancing with his dad. Furthermore line 15 says "still clinging to his shirt" which suggests to me that the kid wouldn't like to go to bed since he appreciated the time with his dad. All these poetic words leave me with the feeling this is an awesome relationship that the father has with his son even

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Response paper – 11 In My Papa’s Waltz by Theodore Roethke, father had too much whiskey. Father’s breath of whiskey make little boy dizzy. Now dad is having dance named waltz in the poem, around the kitchen with his son. Father and son waltz is pretty awkward.

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906 Words | 4 Pages

On the surface, this poem seems to be about two people (a father and child) dancing a clumsy version of a waltz; however, upon closer inspection, it becomes apparent that the poem is actually an extended metaphor comparing domestic abuse to what is usually a beautifully graceful dance. The brilliance of this poem is in the irony that the metaphor presents: the horror of abuse to the beauty of the waltz. What makes this metaphor most apparent is the diction. While Roethke incorporates words like “waltzing” (l.4), “romped” (l.5), and “beat time” (l.13), all words associated with jubilant dancing, other words and phrases indicate quite the opposite of jubilance. For example, in the final stanza, Roethke writes, “You beat time on my head / With a palm caked hard by dirt, / Then waltzed me off to bed / Still clinging to your shirt.”

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811 Words | 4 Pages

I have a toolbox that I am constantly adding things to that I think will help me mold my son. In My Papas’s Waltz, a poem by Theodore Roethke, the first line reads “The whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy” (lines 1 – 2). Assuming that the poem is about a son’s father and starting off

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