Theodore Roethkes Poem My Papas Waltz - Essay Example

Theodore Roethke: My Papa’s Waltz. To learn to really appreciate poetry, one must often learn how to analyze it for meaning and intention by looking at the poet’s thoughts and feelings as they are expressed in the ‘story’ of the poem, but also by looking at aspects such as rhyme, rhythm, word choice, imagery and symbolism. By looking at these individual elements, the reader can often develop a greater understanding of the author’s skill and a finer appreciation of how these elements are constructed to contribute to the final impact of the poem. This type of analysis is also helpful in understanding how the author evokes emotion in the reader to bring about an expected or desired reaction. This can be demonstrated through an examination of subject and word choice in Theodore Roethke’s poem “My Papa’s Waltz.” In the poem, the poet presents what first appears to be an innocent story about a young boy enjoying a moment of bliss with his father as the two of them dance about the room just before bedtime. Roethke begins by talking about how waltzing like this with his dad is not easy, bringing to mind the half-remembered days of standing on the tops of a father’s shoes as he clumsily danced about the room with an additional several-pounds’ child standing on his toes and clinging about his upper thighs: “The whiskey on your breath / Could make a small boy dizzy; / But I hung on like death: / Such waltzing was not easy” (1-4). That the dancing is exuberant is illustrated in the second stanza as Roethke mentions how they “romped until the pan / Slid from the kitchen shelf” (6). Their closeness, already hinted at by the boy becoming dizzy in the fog of his father’s whisky breath, is again encountered in the third stanza as man and boy hold hands and “At every step you missed / My right ear scraped a knuckle” (11-12). Finally, the poem ends as the boy is waltzed off to bed with the reader’s imagination finishing the dance in a flourish, swinging the boy around in the air until his clinging hands come loose and he lands squarely in the center of a soft mattress and comfortable sheets. However, as the poem is read through, the reader is left with an uneasy sense of things being not quite right, as if there is something much more sinister occurring within the lines of the poem than this surface impression reveals. Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that this sinister element emerges as a result of the specific words Roethke uses to build his imagery. He talks about how the boy “hung on like death” (3) and the damage being done to the house as the pans slide off the shelves. This is complicated by the breath that smells so strongly of whisky that it can “make a young boy dizzy” (1). The mother watches the scene with an expression that “could not unfrown itself” (8) despite the charming image playing across the reader’s mind of a pleasurable and touching father and son moment. Physical injury is suggested in the third stanza as the “hand that held my wrist / Was battered on one knuckle” (9-10) and “At every step you missed / My right ear scraped a buckle” (11-12). It is noticed here that the hands are not holding as a reader might first imagine but instead, the father is holding the son’s wrist in what could as easily denote a forceful, intimidating gesture. This thought is continued, especially with a mental connection of buckle with belt and belt with a common punishment for children, to associate itself more with the idea of abuse than of play and pain more than fun. That the father’s knuckle is scraped suggests a man ready, willing and already proving an ability to strike, perhaps scraping his knuckle as a result of striking his child or perhaps his wife before the child interfered. This idea is reinforced in the final stanza, when the boy indicates the father “beat time on my head” (13). By focusing solely upon these types of words, one may come away from the poem with a sense that Roethke is actually describing a scene of child abuse couched in friendlier terms. This emerging idea of the poem almost forces one to focus on the word ‘beat’ used in the fourth stanza as particularly meaningful. This word has several possible meanings that work with the tone of the poem as it emerges in the mind of the reader. The three that seem particularly relevant associate this word with the concept of music, the concept of violence and the concept of exhaustion. The idea of beat as an element of sound is suggested first in the title as a waltz is defined by is ¾ time. This seems to be the intended meaning of the word as it is used in the obvious context of the poem as the speaker speaks to his father, “you beat time on my head” (13), indicating the father is keeping to the time of the music by bringing his hand down on the top of the boy’s head. This is not only evident in the title, but also in the meter of the poem in which each line is provided with three stressed beats like a waltz. The premise of the poem is that the man and boy are dancing through the room, but again, the idea of dancing, like the idea of ‘beat’ can have multiple meanings, including actually dancing as well as the violent dance of a fight. This introduces the second concept of the word beat as in striking someone repeatedly or physical abuse. This possible meaning infuses the poem with an undertone of violence that is reinforced by other words that have this same meaning. These include the ideas of ‘battered’ that is used in describing the battered condition of his father’s hand. This condition indicates that the man is accustomed to fighting and violence and has little or no reluctance to use this same force within the home as the small boy is scraped against the father’s belt buckle, another image for many children of violence as it is the belt was often used as a direct means of punishment for young boys who broke the rules. The idea of violence suggested by the definition of the word ‘beat’ is also found in the first stanza when the speaker confesses that he found it necessary to hang on “like death” (3) in order to avoid injury during these wild dances he shared with his father. Finally, the word ‘beat’ can refer to the concept of exhaustion. Thinking about this meaning of the word, it can be considered that perhaps the speaker is voicing his experience of the waltz with his father because he is tired of hiding the violence that existed in his home, or that he is tired of feeling conflicted about the mix of hard hands and whisky along with dancing and merry-making. The concept of violence never seems to be able to completely fade away as one considers the whisky on the father’s breath, the hardness in his body and the mother’s face which “could not unfrown itself” (8). Perhaps the reason why the reader can never determine whether the waltz is something fun for the boy or something frightening is because the boy was never quite able to determine this for himself. He is tired of trying to explain it to himself and therefore writes it out in a poem to allow others to analyze these feelings and determine for themselves whether the home should be considered violent, musical or simply tiring. Throughout the poem, the poet understands how the reader will react based on common childhood memories and the power of imagination to ‘see’ the scene as it plays out. The typical child behavior of standing on a father’s feet to learn how to dance, the exuberant energy of young child a relaxed man enjoying a moment of fun together, the flying sensation of being waltzed into bed all contribute to the nostalgic sense evoked as a result of the ability to imagine the scene presented. At the same time, the harsh words and reminders of strong disciplines, the belt buckle, the battered knuckle, instill an imagined sense of fear. Careful choice of words leaves the meaning unclear and therefore somewhat disturbing. Without this ability to imagine the scene as presented, it is difficult to come to any conclusions regarding the poem, leaving the reader somewhat doubtful as to what, exactly, the poet is attempting to convey. Read More