My PAPA's WALTZ

¶ … Papa's Waltz

In his poem "My Papa's Waltz," Theodore Roethke describes the antics of an alcoholic father with eerie imagery. This brief four stanza poem conveys a tone of sorrow and sympathy for a young boy and his abusive father. Roethke employs a considerable amount of irony with his choice of language, for a waltz normally evokes joyful dance and lively music. In the case of "My Papa's Waltz," however, the dance is dysfunctional and dangerous. While there is no overt mentioning of child or wife battering, the poet suggests that the waltz approaches child abuse. With words like "death" and "beat," Roethke hints at actions without blatantly describing them. The poet manages to create a definite mood through subtle selection of words, a simple rhyme scheme, and poignant imagery.

Significant poetic features of "My Papa's Waltz" include rhyme, meter, diction, and imagery. "My Papa's Waltz" contains four-line stanzas with lines of either six or seven syllables. The structure of the poem mimics the title and main metaphor of a waltz, which is always written and performed with the same ae timing. Moreover, the rhyme scheme in "My Papa's Waltz" is a simple and straightforward ABAB. Roethke liberalizes only one pair of rhymes: "pans" and "countenance," but the rest are direct, as "knuckle" and "buckle." However integral rhyme scheme is to "My Papa's Waltz," imagery and diction form the backbone of the poem and are the most important poetic devices Roethke uses to convey meaning and mood. The poet employs both simile ("I hung on like death,") and metaphor ("You beat time on my head,") to create the rich imagery in "My Papa's Waltz." In fact, the title of the poem embodies the central metaphor of a dysfunctional dance. Roethke chose the central metaphor of waltzing for its ironic value.

Roethke's diction throughout the poem creates a sense of queasiness in the reader, corresponding with the dizziness felt by the boy. This physical nausea corresponds to the mental merry-go-round of the poem. The narrator gazes back on his childhood with an ironic sense of sympathy. The tone is surprisingly not bitter; the narrator comes across as neither angry nor sympathetic. Rather, he is realistic. "The hand that held my wrist was battered on one knuckle." Looking back, the narrator realizes that his father led a tough life and was taking it out on his family as well as himself. The father's "palm caked hard by dirt" also conveys this central message, as does the word "papa" in the title. "Papa" denotes intimacy and love, whereas the word "father" would entail more distance and coldness. Telling the story through the boy's eyes in this manner creates considerable empathy; the reader hears the story first-hand. Thus, point-of-view is significant in "My Papa's Waltz."