My Papa's Waltz

Adam Crowley

The poem, “My Papa’s Waltz,” by Theodore Roethke, is about the ongoing issue of a father physically abusing his young son. There are many specific details throughout the poem that support this idea. The father in this poem is a violent alcoholic. It is a common and ongoing problem in this particular household. Finally, I believe that both the mother and child disapprove of the father’s actions, but don’t dare to take action against him. This poem shows the reader what happens on a typical night at this particular household. Physical abuse from a father to his son is a normal occurrence in this household. “My Papa’s Waltz,” is a poem about violence. The man in “My Papa’s Waltz” is very violent. There is evidence in the poem that suggests he is an alcoholic. Evidence that the father is a violent alcoholic can be found in the first two lines of the poem. The first two lines say, “The whiskey on your breath/Could make a small boy dizzy,” which literally tells the reader that the man is under the influence of alcohol. When he says, “But I hung on like death/Such waltzing was not easy,” it gives the reader the idea that his father is being very rough with him and he is skeptical to participate in any kind of activity with his father, however, he has no choice. More violence is evident when the speaker says, “We romped until the pans/Slid from the kitchen shelf.” This suggests a struggle. An image that comes to mind is the little boy being thrown into the wall and knocking the pans off of a nearby shelf with the force of his body. More evidence that violence is in this poem is on line ten. Line ten reads, “Was battered on one knuckle.” This means that the speaker’s hand is all scraped up and bloody, possibly from a struggle or banging it off something. “You beat time on my head/with a palm caked hard by dirt,” shows even more evidence that there is violence occurring in the poem. “With a palm caked hard by dirt” tells a little bit about the man. I believe this line tells the reader that the man is very strong because he works with his hands. I believe that by this line saying his hands are hardened by dirt, it tells us that he works with his hands. The reader can interpret the words “caked hard by dirt,” as hands that are very tough and also rough, like one would picture hard packed dirt to be. When the speaker says these lines, I believe he is trying to tell the reader that his father slaps him in the head and it causes him much pain. “My Papa’s Waltz” can be interpreted as a very violent poem. Household violence seems to be a fairly common thing in this particular household. I think this for several reasons. First of all, in the first pair of lines, it reads, “The whiskey on your breath/Could make a small boy dizzy,” which makes me believe that the father is extremely drunk. It also makes me think that he drinks like this on a regular and consistent basis and no one dares to tell him to do otherwise. I believe no one dares to tell him otherwise because in the second stanza, it tells of how the mother is disapproving of what is going on. It says, “We romped until the pans/Slid from the kitchen shelf/My mother’s countenance/Could not unfrown itself.” This stanza makes me believe that child abuse is an ongoing problem at this house because it informs the reader that the lady in the poem disapproves of what is happening. I would assume that if this was a one time thing, the lady would have said something to stop what was going on or done something to intervene with this incident. Since she just stands there with a scowl on her face and doesn’t say a word, I believe that she knows exactly what will happen if she says anything. Maybe it will make it worse for the little boy, or maybe she will also get it if she tries to stop it. Either way, she is not stopping it for a reason. In my opinion, she keeps quiet because she is scared of the man. There is evidence in line four that this is a reoccurrence when the speaker says, “Such waltzing was not easy.” It makes me believe that they have all been through this before. By reading this line, one gets the impression that the speaker has experienced this abuse before