Father and Child and relationships can be difficult. Some better than others and some worse. In the poem “My Papa's Waltz” by Theodore Roethke the way I interpret the peom is an abusive husband who is never home and when he is he is intoxication. Starting from the first “The whiskey on your breath could make a small boy dizzy” to me means the father just came home from drinking and knocking the kid out dizzy. The next line continuing the same thought as the previous line “But I hung on like death” Could be the young child is out unconscious and just hanging on to his life. After that the line “Such waltzing was not easy” might be it wasn’t easy for the child to watch their father to dance over his body. This stance to me means that the father came home drunk and he knocked the child out the point of the child being unconscious. A Husband and Wife can share a strang bond between each other. Love, Lust and some strange interest. As the second stance goes it sounds like Wife and Husband are waltzing in the kitchen where the child lays there …show more content…
Some don’t want to speak to their parents after they move out. Some do self harm to get attention from others. As the third stance starts in the poem “My Papa’s Waltz” begin with “The held my wrist” to me is the father picking the kid by the wrist or the child covering up his wrist. That is followed by “Was battered on one knuckle” which is that one of the fathers knuckles is bloody from beating the child from the first stance. After that line it's followed by “At every step you missed” which could be every body part which not isn’t damaged. The final line of the third stance is backed up by “My right ear scraped a buckle.” which is the child getting beaten by a belt buckle in the child’s right ear. The stance to me repentances the child trying to get back up the beating he took in the first stance but the father came back and saw the child trying to get back
This shows that he wants the students to be gentle with their bodies. He wants the students to be gentle with his parent’s bodies. The end of the poem says they
the boy talks about trying to run away, and the boy talks about being beaten. I have a few reasons why I believe this. Some might disagree, here is my evidence. The poem is about domestic violence because the boy talks about being beaten.
However, the speaker hears the father’s singing as “a children’s song,” which are often characterized as simple-minded (9). Since the line “my shoulder against his” demonstrates the speaker to be the same height as the father and therefore also an adult, the speaker could initially consider his father’s straight-forward attempt at a connection to be either too simple for what attention he should be given now that he is grown-up (11). The speaker believes the father should have tried for this connection when he was still a child rather than “now” (8). These negative attitudes at the beginning of the stanza, allows the speaker to create a shift for the audience with the next phrase, “I lean into him” (9). The audience sees the speaker ignoring his gut, giving into his want to form a relation with his father.
Throughout the poem, an extended metaphor is utilized to compare the relationship to a light waltz. When his father doesn’t agree with him, the two often engage in altercations that leave
In his poem “My Papa’s Waltz”, poet Theodore Roethke utilizes disturbing imagery and a gloomy tone to illustrate the idea that a person out of control can cause more damage to people surrounding them than themselves. The poem describes a young child who is forced to do the popular dance, The Waltz, by their father. The drunk father beats his son every time the child makes a mistake during the dance. During these events, the mother of the minor stands by helplessly.
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.
‘’My Papa’s Waltz’’ is about how a father and son don’t have a good relationship because the father is drunk all the time and the phrase ‘’The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy.’’ In this poem, it appears that the son is also drunk and can see the concern on his mothers face as he and his father walk in the kitchen bumping into the shelfs, making the pans fall off. ‘’We romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelves.’’ At the end of the poem, the speaker says ‘’You beat time on my head’’ meaning that his father is abusive and hits him, but even though his father does that, he still loves him. We can tell that the tone of this poem is fear because of the way his father is.
Theodore Roethke’s poem, “My Papa’s Waltz,” discusses a child and father’s interactions within their kitchen as the mother watches while frowning. Roethke delivers his work through the child’s perspective, an unreliable speaker, which enables an ambiguous tone. This allows the reader to interpret the child and father’s relationship in many ways. Words involved in Roethke’s diction, such as “waltzed,” “romped,” and “dizzy,” indicate enjoyment within the relationship. On the other hand, “beat,” “death,” and “battered” create a sinister picture of abuse.
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.
Many individuals believe that hands tell a lot about a person, such as their job or even their class. For instance, rough hands might indicate that the person works in construction and soft hand might indicate a person of high-class who is able to take care of his or her skin. The most common reason for cracked and aching hands is cold weather, which implies that the father in “Those Winter Sundays” is a blue-collar worker who performs his job outside. This contrasts with the battered hands seen in “My Papa’s Waltz,” which indicates some form of violence. The harsh words in both “My Papa’s
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
My papa’s waltz his/her dad was drunk while his son/daughter trying to teach waltz and in Grape sherbet his/her dad made recipe of swirled snow. “But I hung on like death/ Such waltzing was not easy” (line 3 and 4). “Dad appears with his
Now the father has transitioned from his hands, to his belt. To target the sons’ ear was not his purpose, but you could almost imagine the continuous beating with no intended target other than his son. The goal was to hurt him, does not matter where he hurt
“Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden has much significance throughout it, the poem is generally about an adult reflecting back to his childhood having regrets for not appreciating his father's love. Hayden describes a father to son relationship for the reader. This poem can be similar to the quote “ you don’t what you’ve got until it's taking away” Hayden uses imagery, diction, and emotional appeal to make it relatable to the readers. Hayden writes this poem figuratively using imagery to provide the reader with a vivid ideal for example “Blueback cold” shows imagery of how cold those winter Sundays really were, and “Blueblack cold can also be used metaphorically here to describe the bruise on the child heart from the feeling of thinking he was unloved throughout his childhood. All love is shown in a different manner you just have to understand the
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.