A Boy’s Complex Love to His Father in Theodore Roethke's Poem My Papa's Waltz

Poetry is always used to narrate poet’s childhood experience and deliver the emotions to others. Theodore Roethke’s poem “My Papa’s Waltz” is a simple four stanza poem narrating his childhood incident of dancing with his drunk father. However, the poem is complexity with hidden meanings in each 16 lines, which causes readers could understand the true meaning of the poem in two diametrically opposite ways. Some people consider it as a joyful memory of a dance between father and son before bedtime. Some people find parental abuse through the poem. Therefore, the tone, word choice and metaphors of this poem show the complex emotions of Theodore Roethke’s fear and love for his abusive father.

The title gets expectation and uncertainty from readers. By glancing at the title “My Papa’s Waltz”, the readers are not sure what the poem would tell. It could be a dance between his parents, or it could be about his father dancing alone, or it could talk about his father having a love affair. After reading the whole poem, it makes sense why the author titles the poem “My Papa’s waltz”. The reason is that his father dances the waltz without caring the feeling of the young little son, and it seems that the father is the only one enjoys the dance. However, the word “Papa” hints a feeling of respect and love, since Papa is an affectionate term for father. When a child calls his dad Papa, it indicates that the relationship between them is close and that the child admires his father.

The first stanza of the poem sets up a tone of unpleasure. Usually, the first order in a poem is to establish the mood or situation, and Roethke selects the father’s drunk status as the foremost fact to be conveyed. The line “ The whiskey on your breath” evokes the image of a drunk father (1). The mention of Whiskey also creates a sense of foreboding, since alcohol usually related to child abuse problem among parents who have less self- control. The following line “Could make a small boy dizzy;” confirms that the father has consumed a large amount of whiskey since the smell of it is so potent(2). The use of word “your” proves that the poem is a direct address to the father from a son. Then Roethke writes, “But I hung on like death,” it seems to convey a child’s terrible feeling from having to face a drunk father.

The image painted here is that of a child and his father waltzing around the house with the boy having to hold on “like death”. The word “death” emphasizes the helplessness of the child against his drunk father, and it also evokes a notion of possible physical fight involved. A child waltzing with a drunk father could be a difficult task, as described in the line “Such waltzing was not easy” (3-4). Waltz supposes to be a passionate and adoring dance between two people. However, his father’s drunk status is making it hard for Roethke to dance with him. Here, waltz is a metaphors of the relationship between Roethke and his father, which is supposed to be loving and joyful. However, Roethke’s drunk and abusive father makes the relationship less appealing or even painful to Roethke.

The author doesn’t use any specific words connecting to fighting in the second stanza. The word “romped,” in first line of this stanza symbolizea joyous, loving relationship between father and son. But the readers would suddenly understand the roughness and the violence of the altercation by reading the following line “Slid from the kitchen shelf” (5-6). These lines reveal that it’s odd for them to have such boisterous dance since waltz should be graceful, which makes the use of the word “ waltz” to describe the father’s behavior ironic.

The mother is introduced in the lines “My mother’s countenance / Could not unfrown itself” as she does not engage in the dancing. And her frowning face indicates that she is displeased with either the mess in the kitchen or her son dancing with the drunk, abusive father (7-8). If this is only a joyful romp between father and son, the mother will at least make an attempt to stop them from “destroying” the kitchen. Instead, the author pictures a visual image of a silent, unpleasant woman, perhaps afraid due to past experience of domestic violence from her drunk husband. This detail also suggests the domineering image of the father who controls the whole family.

In third stanza, Roethke illustrates how his father treats him roughly not only during the dance. The lines “The hand that held my wrist / Was battered on one knuckle” show that his father holds his wrist roughly instead of clinging to Roethke’s hand like normal waltz partners do. It also implies that the the life and freedom of the author are dominated by his father. “Battered on one knuckle” symbolize the hard work of Roethke’s father, since his father could receive such injury from work. This set up the image of the father as a brute and alcoholic worker. Roethke concludes third stanza with the lines “at every step you missed / my right ear scraped a buckle”, which implies abuse and violence (11-12). The father’s missed steps could cause direct consequences to the son, which makes the readers easily think that the author get beaten every time when he doesn’t obey his father or when his father doesn’t do well at work. However, the last two lines also show that Roethke still choose to love his father Roethke, no matter how abusive his father is and how he is getting hurt.

The author points out in last stanza that even though his father is careless and abusive towards him and his mother, he is still “clinging” to his father. Roethke uses the word “beat” in the line “You beat time on my head” to refer to a musical beat here, but he also implies physical assault from a father to son. The line “With a palm caked hard by dirt” generates a picture of a father with rough hands, who has a difficult lifestyle of hard work. And this line also recalls the image of his father’s hand in lines 9-10 in third stanza(13-14). The author creates a heart-warming image of the complexity of the connection between father and son in the last two lines “Then waltzed me off to bed/ Still clinging to your shirt” (15-16). It suggests that the love from son to father does exist, and he is still willing to accept his father despite all the abusive experience that he endured. However, “Clinging to his shirt” is also a metaphor for the author’s holding on to his father’s memory, which indicates Roethke still values the memories with his father and does not want to let it go.

This poem does not states that the son is being beaten by his drunk father. Roethke writes this narrating poem with a tone of unpleasure and many hidden meanings of words in each stanza, but he does not express any hate for his father because of the possible beating. However, he shows the readers that his love for his father will last by mentioning twice during the poem, such as” But I hung on ” in the first stanza, and ” Still clinging to your shirt.” in the fourth stanza, which gives the readers the feeling that he choose to love and accept his father during his childhood, and even now.