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What Is The Tone Of My Papa's Waltz

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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. The specific rhythmic structure and meter present within the poem insinuate the unstable relationship …show more content…

While certain words like whiskey, death, battered, scraped, and beat in the poem give off a dark and aggressive mood; the words dizzy, waltzing, easy, romped, knuckle, and buckle give off a clumsy and happy tone. The conflicting positive and negative connotations attributed to these words help to create an ambiguous meaning consistent with the rest of the poem; whether the father is dancing with his child or whether it is something more than that is left to the viewer's interpretation and never to the speaker of the poem. In the line “You beat time on my head”, the reader has to properly enunciate the letter “t” to give way to the rest of the poem (line 13). This emphasizes the “beat time” phrase—notably since the phrase is two stressed syllables—which can be alluded to the father training the child how to waltz or to some sort of physical tension (line 13). The poem also gives a passionate tone dedicated to the father from the speaker, as the speaker romanticizes many aspects of the dance—comparing it to a waltz. The line “But I hung on like death” emphasizes this love the child has for the father through the use of a simile (line 3). Another example would be “Still clinging to your shirt”, which could hint at the speaker still “clinging” to the memories of his father (line

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If he did not hang on as tightly, he might fall and get hurt. This simile could be related to the idiom “hanging on like grim death”, which means to hang on tightly, for fear of falling. The word “grim” might have been omitted so that this line can fit into the iambic trimeter. The word “death”(3) is rather negative in the context of the father and child playing around in the kitchen, and casts a certain gloom on the poem.

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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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Every story consists of different elements, such as characters, plotlines, and settings. Nonetheless, many stories portray the same messages or ideas. “My Papa’s Waltz,” by Theodore Roethke, depicts a reckless father who is loved by his child, while “Those Winter Sundays,” by Robert Hayden, depicts a hardworking father whose child is indifferent to him. Though the poems depict exceptionally different childhoods, both contribute to the idea that perceptions of parents alter as one grows into adulthood. Both poems use harsh words and critical tones in order to convey this notion, however in “My Papa’s Waltz,” they signify the recklessness of the father and how the narrator perceives his father as an adult, while in “Those Winter Sundays,” they

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650 Words | 3 Pages

There is a cycle of the negative actions that cause his father to get drunk, however, his father feelings has been expressed by actions not words. For example, the says “you beat time on my head” meaning the how rough the father has been hitting him (Roethke 968). The narrator makes it same to make it fit with the meter of the music to be disguised. Dancing of the music which seems to be more of a beating to the narrator that says “at every step you missed/ my right ear scraped a buckle”

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1925 Words | 8 Pages

My father’s Song, the speaker is narrating the memories they shared with his father. These two poems are written with a focus on the father and child relationship. The two poems also reveal the narrators ' memories and shows how fast time can go and what was meaningful in the narrators’ childhood is gone. The two poems share the themes of Love, Childhood memories, and endeavors of the male parent. Likewise, the two poems contrast like love, reflected by the two fathers, the memories of childhood and the narrator’s feelings about their memories.

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764 Words | 4 Pages

“You beat time on my head, With a palm caked hard by dirt, Then waltzed me off to bed, Still clinging to your shirt” (Lines 13-16). The line, “You beat time in my head,” (Line 13), may be misunderstood to indicate physical violence. However, because the waltz begins in a slow rhythm that gradually, increases in tempo, the boy is dizzy and breathless, and yet happy, by its end. Although exhausted the narrator still desires to continue prancing around with the father. Given the opportunity, he would gladly experience his childhood memories exactly the same – bruises, cuts and all.

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902 Words | 4 Pages

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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846 Words | 4 Pages

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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588 Words | 3 Pages

In the poem, My Papa’s Waltz, the speaker, Theodore Roethke, writes about a father and son waltzing. Further investigation suggests there is more going on than a waltz. The poet utilizes figure of speech and a negative toned vocabulary throughout the poem. Thus, alleviating the reader of the harsh truth of an abusive relationship whilst never dehumanizing the father.

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664 Words | 3 Pages

In the poem, “My Papa’s Waltz”, Theodore Roethke illustrates the complex relationship between a little boy and his father by juxtaposing images of love and violence through word choices that portray feelings of fear yet affection for his father. Roethke’s shifting tone encompasses distress and a sense admiration that suggests the complexities of violence both physically and emotionally for the undercurrents of his father and son relationship. The poem begins with a series of negative images, each of which are considered violent and undesirable in a family. For example, “The whiskey on your breath” suggests alcoholism, and “Could make a small boy dizzy” emphasizes that a boy is suffering from the effects of the alcoholic parent.

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531 Words | 3 Pages

In this poem all the son sees is battered knuckles on his father with “palms caked hard by dirt.” This paints a description of an abusive father that does not love his son because if he did love his son he would not hurt him. The father is first introduced with “whiskey on his breath” (line 1) which can be inferred that he is an alcoholic and this creates a negative image that the reader can see and even smell. The son though seems to notice all this, but still seems to love his father and admire him. The waltz represents a repetitive step and in the poem the waltz is his father’s constant abuse and interrupts the sweet idealistic dance.

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734 Words | 3 Pages

The text I am going to be analyzing is ‘My Papa’s Waltz’, a poem written by Theodore Roethke. The poem was written in 1942. The poem discusses a domestic situation of a little boy describing the behaviour and characteristics of his parents, especially his father. Roethke had a difficult relationship with his father, who died when he was fifteen, and the poem reflects that. The themes of the poem are family and admiration.

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Diction has a strong affect on how readers interpret a passage. This is proven through Theodore Roethke’s poem, “My Papa’s Waltz”. The poem presents a boy roughhousing with his father. However, some critics see the roughhousing taking place as abusive, due to the negative word choice displayed throughout the poem. The author set a positive and negative tone throughout the poem, representing the respect and fear he had for his father.

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