Summary Of My Papa's Waltz By Theodore Roethke

A Darker Side of Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” At first read, a happy and joyful experience between a father and son may be what one takes away from “My Papa’s Waltz,” but a darker meaning of Theodore Roethke’s poem may rise to the surface after deeper study. Buried in-between the lines of Theodore Roethke’s poem “My Papa’s Waltz,” many different interpretations can be taken from this interaction between the father and son, and the “waltz” these two share. The negative interpretation, arguably, would be that of more than just a “waltz,” but a trace of something else going on, such as torment and abuse, in the midst of the child’s thought of play. Taking a look inside this father/son relationship, it can be inferred that Roethke writes this poem to use the

Roethke uses others words inside the lines of the poem to expresses the emotional time for the child such as “[m]y right ear scraped a buckle” and “[t]he hand that held my wrist/ was battered on one knuckle” (293). These four lines are significant indications that the father and son are on completely different pages during their “playtime” routine. In Jim Baird’s article titled “My Papa’s Waltz,” he offers his input involving the diction in the poem stating “from the child’s perspective, the waltz had been something to endure, not to enjoy” (3). On the same note, Jadwin writes in her article “the diction of this poem underscores the child’s sense of fright at the experience and it is clearly not amusing for the child who has to hold on tightly to his father” (2). These articles offer insight as to why Roethke used the words he used to tell this brutal story of such torment being inflicted towards this child in the hands of an angry father. Exploring the scene in her article, Janssen writes about a drunken father ruining a family