Analysis Of My Papa's Waltz By Theodore Roethke
As we grow older, small moments we shared with our parents seem to take on a new light. Memories we once viewed with fondness or with uncertainty can evolve and change our perceptions and lend a new tone to these memories. This is shown in Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” which tells of an encounter between father and son. The poem opens with the father arriving home after a night of drinking whiskey. Once home, he and his son waltz around the room. The son remembers the strong smell of whiskey on his father’s breath and how he clung to him. While dancing, they make a mess in the kitchen and knock pans out of their placement, to the mother’s unhappiness. The father is intoxicated and this causes him to be clumsy and to be rough with his son. His father towards the end of their dance guides him back to his room while he clings to him. …show more content…
The phrasing of the lines and various alternatives in which they can be perceived, by Roethke serve to further cement this idea. The narrator states, “at every step you missed / My right ear scraped a buckle” (11-12). This line, in particular, implies that he is being beaten by his father with a belt. Another line that is used as literal, in part, evidence for this stance is when his father “beat time on his head” (13). To some, the mother’s unhappiness is due not to them creating a mess in the kitchen, but due to the abuse her son is experiencing. Despite this, the implications of child abuse are those taken from the very surface. The poem is not an account of child abuse but a reflection on Roethke’s father, more specifically the sadness he felt following his father’s
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How Does Theodore Roethke Use Literary Devices
541 Words | 3 PagesIn the third stanza, he describes him being wounded by his father. In the fourth stanza, he gives off the image of him being beat by his father to bed. These images help the reader visualize what the narrator had to go through in his childhood. It gave the reader a feeling of how it felt like being in the narrator’s
Analysis Of But I Hung On Like Death By Theodore Roethke
156 Words | 1 PagesThe simile “But I hung on like death” (3) in Theodore Roethke’s poem allows the writer to clearly set the darker tone of “My Papa’s Waltz”. In this poem, the poet describes his father’s odd behavior. He also defines that alcohol was a factor and, consequently, his mother’s disapproved of the father’s actions.
My Papa's Waltz Figurative Language
354 Words | 2 PagesI liked this poem because it was a little easier to analyze and interpret. Through the use of negative connotation within the poem “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke creates a more complex tone in which feelings of discomfort, tension and affection are both present. The author uses imagery and figurative language to paint a picture of a father and his son dancing around the kitchen. Roethke uses words like “dizzy,” “battered,” and “scraped” to describe the physical state that the speaker is in when they interact with their father, and that might be suggestive of violence between a father and his child, which might make one uncomfortable, or uneasy. T It also talks about being able to smell the whiskey on his breath.
Ambiguous Language In My Papa's Waltz
338 Words | 2 PagesThe poem “My Papa’s Waltz” written by Theodore Roethke uses vague and ambiguous language about the relationship he and his father share. The unique circumstances of each family are never easy to understand. Father’s helps build a solid foundation in their sons lives by their presence, their absence, their criticism, their encouragement, and ultimately, the lessons passed along from one generation to the next. The tone of the poem gave me the impression that Roethke loved his hard working, rough housing, playful father.
Scott Sanders Under The Influence Summary
727 Words | 3 PagesThis comes with harsh descriptive images of how his father could beath them like how “an irked bear might smack a cub” or how he could “twist her neck back until she gapes at him” (740). He includes this graphic imagery to explain the danger him and his family were put in. Although his father never followed through (a point he emphasizes to redirect pity he may receive to people he feels need it more), the threat of such aggressive violence can cause its own complications with healing and pain. It is clear that such a threat impacted his experiences in childhood and then carried such a burden as he grew in his own
My Papa's Waltz Literary Analysis
533 Words | 3 PagesAll such attributes that characterize “My Papa’s Waltz” reminds the reader why it is such an enriching piece of literature, as its imagery can transparently express all that Roethke experienced emotionally. “My Papa’s Waltz” is a powerful poem that integrates an honest conversation towards the obnoxious nature of drunkenness. Theodore Roethke used this poetic piece to vividly display the perplex issues children in society deal with when confronting a family member who drinks. The poem’s nature is half affectionate and half satirical as it mocks the events his father placed on him that he never
How Does Theodore Interpretation Of My Papa's Waltz '?
153 Words | 1 PagesIn the New critical essay about “My Papa’s Waltz”, the author does not agree with Theodore interpretation of this poem. For the author, this poem is not a positive expression of the pass, but a negative memory of the life of his father. Three evidences support the author’s opinion. First of all, he think that Theodore manipulated their emotional response to the poem. This manipulation is a temptation for them to change their opinion about the response to the poem.
Theodore Roethke My Papas Waltz Summary
88 Words | 1 PagesTheodore Roethke wrote the poem “My Papa’s Waltz” to display his love towards his father through their playful actions and his need to spend time with his father. Roethke’s father spends most of his time at work and for that reason Roethke wants to spend time with his father despite of him being drunk. The end of the poem ends as they are about to fall asleep. Roethke “Still clinging to [his father’s] shirt.”
Compare And Contrast Sylvia Plath And My Papa's Waltz
846 Words | 4 PagesMeanwhile, 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
Analysis Of My Papa's Waltz By Theodore Roethke
526 Words | 3 PagesAbuse can change a person's life in many ways. While the subject of the poem “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke has spurred passionate academic debate from professors, scholars, and students alike, the imagery, syntax, and diction of the poem clearly support the interpretation that Roethke writes “My Papa’s Waltz” to express his remembrance of his dad despite the abuse. In discussions of “My Papa’s Waltz,” one controversial issue has been the author's choice of words. On the one hand, some readers argue that this is a fond memory. On the other hand, many readers contend that the poem is about abuse.
My Papa's Waltz Imagery
507 Words | 3 PagesAlso fully in the next stanza we get the scene of rough housing and the mother not approving but also not doing anything, “We romped/ My mother’s countenance/Could not unfrown itself” (5-8). Next the reader gets a sense of abuse from the fact that when something went wrong the father would abuse the child, “At every step you missed/ My right ear scraped a buckle” (11-12). Yet in the head despite the abuse the son receives from his father often he still loves him wanting his father’s love in return “Then waltzed me off to bed/still clinging to your shirt” (15-16).
In My Papa's Waltz
811 Words | 4 PagesI 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
My Papa's Waltz Literary Devices
1220 Words | 5 PagesA good father is someone who makes you feel safe, someone you can count on. However, everyone has different parents. Some people have hardworking, loving fathers, and other people have alcoholic, abusive ones. In the poem, “My Papa’s Waltz”, by Theodore Roethke, the speaker, who is a young boy, waltzes through the house with his alcoholic father. The poem is ironic because the poem is very well organized and the speaker uses the word “waltz”, which should be an organized dance, but the scene in the poem is unorganized and even chaotic.
My Father's Whiskey Analysis
605 Words | 3 PagesOne key image in this poem is that of the whiskey bottle itself. The bottle was “bought in the next town over or even further away and kept hidden/ in his sock drawer”. It represents the secrets, pasts, and mistakes that should be kept hidden from the outside world, as it was. A guilty pleasure, as it was, “it would last him for/ years”. This shows that the father, a silent man, was not careless about his use of the alcohol or about his
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