In the poem “My Papa’s Waltz” the young boy reveals the good times he has lived with his father. This poem has two different interpretations, a literal interpretation and a counterfeit interpretation. I’ll be interpreting it literally. The poem is about a young boy and his father waltzing around their home. The father has been drinking, but nowhere in the poem it is stated that he is an alcoholic like others presume. They are dancing and it seems that the young boy remembers his life with his father as joyful and playful. His father and him seem to have a very close relationship. The boy explains, “With every step you missed/My right ear scraped a buckle,” the father waltzes with his son rough, but he doesn’t mean to hurt his son intentionally.
Both of these poems have several attributes to the fathers by their children. In the poem My papa's Waltz, the father was very drunk and was out of control and was dancing with his son. While dancing, he knocked off many items in the kitchen in which his wife was not pleased about. The son was agitated by his fathers because of the fact that he is drunk but still wanted to dance with him saying "
Theodore Roethke’s poem, “My Papa’s Waltz,” unfolds the seemingly frequent event of a young boy receiving a beating from his drunken father. The speaker of the poem is a young man, possibly in his early teenage years. This conclusion is based upon line 2, “Could make a small boy dizzy.” This line gives an indication that the main character of the poem has been involved in this type of tussle since he was a small child. There could also be a very strong connection between the author of the poem and the speaker.
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.
"Papa's Waltz" is a poem written in 1948 by the award-winning poet, Theodore Roethke. This poem tells the story of a father and son's physical bond, which is often interpreted as a metaphor for the emotional connection between the two. The poem begins with a description of the father and son dancing together. The father's "thick palms" and "battered knuckles" show his hardworking nature, while the "right hand" with which he holds his son reflects the nurturing and protective embrace of a parent. The waltz also serves as a metaphor for the father's love, with the "palm's on [the son's] neck" conveying a sense of security and comfort.
Roethke uses others words inside the lines of the poem to expresses the emotional time for the child such as “[m]y right ear scraped a buckle” and “[t]he hand that held my wrist/ was battered on one knuckle” (293). These four lines are significant indications that the father and son are on completely different pages during their “playtime” routine. In Jim Baird’s article titled “My Papa’s Waltz,” he offers his input involving the diction in the poem stating “from the child’s perspective, the waltz had been something to endure, not to enjoy” (3). On the same note, Jadwin writes in her article “the diction of this poem underscores the child’s sense of fright at the experience and it is clearly not amusing for the child who has to hold on tightly to his father” (2). These articles offer insight as to why Roethke used the words he used to tell this brutal story of such torment being inflicted towards this child in the hands of an angry father.
In the Poem “My Papa’s Waltz”, poet Theodore Roethke utilizes vivid, dark imagery to create to create a serious and sad tone that illustrates the idea that exposure to people with bad habits can influence habits of your own. In the poem a child is dancing with his father. Theodore uses imagery to make the poem sad. Lines like, “My mother’s countenance could not unfrown itself” and “At every step you missed my ear scraped a buckle” makes it look like this kid is abused and makes the tone sad.
This explains the image of the father’s hand with a torn or bruised knuckle. Many may assume that this is from work or farming, but if the father is an alcoholic then careless drunkenness could have caused the battered hand. Also, the poem countiues to keep up the metaphor of waltzing. The authors says “every step I missed my right ear scraped a buckle” (line 11-12). This seems that the young son might scraped the father’s belt buckle while teaching him the waltz.
As an adult, growing up in that household, it is hard to find peace with their parents' drunk actions. It shows the consequences of alcohalism in a family with problems. In Roethke’s poem “My Papa’s Waltz,” he is talking about his childhood struggles with his alcoholic, abusive father. The dynamic of the father and son was
In the poem “My Papa's Waltz” written by Theodore Roethke, a father carelessly trying to involve his child in his obsessive alcoholic activities. The father tries to conceal his drunkenness with a dance, with the intentions of connection with his child. A father an aggressive appearance, seems to take the edge off of a long day’s work with a few drinks. The poem is narrated by the child, so the author is trying to create a sympathetic mood for this poem; he wants the reader to feel the desperation that the mother and child of the careless drunk go through.
In the poem, imagery creates a variety of link between the boy and his father relationship. From the first stanza, one could assume that the father has a drinking issue, but the young boy is unbothered by it or not affect. “The whiskey on your breath/ Could make a small boy dizzy”(1-2). This shows the father drinking issue.
In this stanza is the first time he addresses who the poem is aimed at ‘and you, my father’ so until you read the whole poem you don 't know who its about. I have decided to compare this poem to ‘Funeral Blues’ as there are many similarities, the poet is struggling to accept the loss of someone that means a lot to them in their hearts and they have both turned their sadness into anger in some ways and desperation in others. This is similar to the reaction of the poet ‘W.H Auden’ when he wrote ‘Funeral Blues’, this poem portrays grief in a way that if you haven 't experienced it, this poem will make you feel the overwhelming pain that the writer was experiencing when he was mourning the loss of his
The meaning of a poem can be expressed through literary devices such as a metaphor or symbolism. When we look at the poem “My Papa’s Waltz,” Symbolism and metaphor are used strategically by the author to express the meaning of a poem. A metaphor is comparing two unlike things without using like or as and symbolism is to give more meaning and life to a certain thing. The poem highlights the experience of a child who was living with an abusive, drunk father and a mother who could not stand up for herself or her child.
This was a metaphor since the speaker was explaining that the father’s and speaker’s relationship using the waltzing and this defines the poem since it shows that the father and son’s relationship was not good. In addition to this from the poem on the line (3), “But I hung on like death...” is a simile to compare that the boy was hanging on his father and was inexorable like death. Thus, the speaker chooses different wording since it helps to frame the poem and provide better comprehension to the reader and as a reader the wording had a great impact on me. In case of this poem, the author’s descriptions showed me that sometimes parents do not accomplish their roles and give their children maximum affection hence creating weak bonds in their
One can assume that the speaker is a young boy, or perhaps the poet reminiscing his youth. Upon first glance, the tone is humorous, and a picture is presented of a boy waltzing with his father. This scene is comical with the boy clinging on for dear life as his chuckling father spins him around. The father dances around in a haphazard manner, knocking over pans in the kitchen while the mother looks on unhappily. Yet the poem takes a turn downward, suggesting the father’s drunkenness and the boy’s right ear being scraped by the buckle signifies the dance was not
In the case of the drunken father, who feels rambunctious enough to enter the home and engage in an inappropriate manner of dancing, that leads to a physical abuse of a child in his home. The meaning of love is deep in this poem for a child to hold on even when face with fear never gave up on an abuse full father. The undeniable fact, in this poem is that a person who suffering from alcoholism needs to wake up and realize the negative effect he is causing his family with his addiction. There is an old saying that time can heal wounds, but memories are a thing that can destroy families forever. The poem “My Papa’s Waltz” is design to open the mind and heart of those suffering from negative love and repair what is missing before it is too