My Papa's Waltz Essay
My Papa’s Waltz is a poem written by Theodore Roethke. The poem is a memory of a short moment of his childhood. The setting of the poem is in a kitchen. The poem starts when the dad comes home and his son hangs himself on to his dad. This poem has a simple abab rhyme scheme. The cool thing about this poem being written in iambic trimeter is that it becomes not just a poem about a waltz, but a waltz itself, because there are three beats in a waltz.
While the boy hangs to his dad, he gets a little dizzy because his father is so drunk that his breath made his son feel dizzy. The poet described that scenario as, “The whiskey on your breath / could make a small boy dizzy; / But I hung on like death / Such waltzing was not easy” (line1-4). The first line can be analyzed through the word breath. We usually smell someone's breathing when we are close to their mouth.
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“The hand that held my wrist (line 9). While dancing his father holds his hand. Holding his son’s hand can be interpreted as a way that the parents supports their children’s in all the aspects of their life.
“Was battered on one knuckle” (line 10). When a person’s hands are battered, it that he/she must be a worker. Therefore, his father is a hard worker. The love between the boy and the dad can be seen by analyzing closely. When a person is tired; all one wants is to rest. But here the father comes tired and instead of going to rest he starts waltzing with his son.
Further, more poet describes, “At every step you missed / My right ear scraped a buckle” (line 11-12). The speakers head touching the belt of his father shows, the height of the son is only half the size of his dad. His age could be predicted to be about 6 to 7 years old. When a kid gets scrapped by a metal, it usually hurts. Here while waltzing; the kid is so lost with his father that he never feels pain, but just
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