my papa's waltz : Analysis

by Dolores Moore

While discussing the experiences of childhood, somebody recently pointed out to me that this poem was about an abused, physically and emotionally terrified little boy. His mother stood to one side, powerless and anxious, while the father was a bullying drunk that the boy obeyed through fear. Then another person suggested that for him, a daddy who drank too much, caroused around the kitchen and displeased his mother, was just a normal aspect of childhood. Significantly, he also added that nobody in his family was ever left hungry, without warmth, shelter and love, all provided by that imperfect father.

These opposing views made me believe that the poem requires a deeper analysis, because it is so full of memories and contains the elements and experiences that speak to many. It recalls childhood events with both tenderness and trepidation, igniting memories and connecting the reader to the scene and emotions, as all good poetry should. It has all the elements of universal truth and connectivity.

Written in 1948, the speaker may be assumed to be the poet as a little boy, remembering his hard working, sometimes drunken father. Roethke's father, uncle and grandfather worked with greenhouses, nature and growing things, and this life has figured largely in his work, evidenced here in this musical, deceptively simple poem. There are several tones throughout the work, love, tenderness and awe, with an undercurrent of fear. With its rhythmic verse form, sounding almost like the treble-time flow of a waltz,end rhyming couplets, and iambic trimeter, as is used in waltz-time for dancing, the rhythm flows seamlessly, like a child's song.

The metaphors within the visual, auditory and tactile imagery hint at a potential for a violent outcome. For example, the drunkenness is made immediate in the first line "The whiskey on your breath" (l. 1), and the words "dizzy" (l. 2) and "romped" (l. 5)suggest a willing participation in the fun of it all. But "The hand that held my wrist/Was battered on one knuckle" (l.9-10) tell us that there is unease under the surface, and worry that the behavior might go out of control and end in violence. That unease was reflected in the mother's face that "could not unfrown itself". (l. 8). The father's hand that "beat time on my head/with a palm caked hard by dirt" (l. 13-14) can be interpreted variously; as a metaphor for a hard working man who works with the soil, or a drunken person not totally aware that his actions could hurt, or just

a part of the father-child ritual. All may be true, depending on one's own experiences, and all speak in love, awe, unease and complicity.

The missed steps may be interpreted as symbols of how a man does his best, but can sometimes slip up, hence "...my right ear scraped a buckle" (l. 12), unintentionally hurting those he loved and who loved him. The poet leaves us in no doubt of that love, because at the end, the child was with his father, in body and mind, as in "Then waltzed me off to bed/Still clinging to your shirt." (l. 15-16)

Anyone who has experienced such childhood moments, when awe, love and respect involved them in adult 'misdeeds', will recognize these scenes and remember those emotions. The man and boy causing havoc with the pans slipping and clattering, the disapproving, sensible mother, and the delicious thrill of complying with the misbehavior. Roethke has put all these together in a wonderful song of tenderness and acceptance, or so I would interpret it from my own life experience.

On the other hand, if these are alien concepts to many readers, then the father might be considered abusive and the child frightened into submission. That is what makes this such a powerful poem, asking for understanding and honest, personal appraisal, while relating to the human condition. From a personal viewpoint, 'My Papa's Waltz' says to me clearly, "Look, here was my hard working dad who sometimes drank too much and got silly. He loved me and liked me to join in his games, and we both made my mother annoyed. At the end of the day, he provided for me, loved me and put me to bed, always with a kiss. He was never perfect, but he was my daddy and I loved him." Thank you Theodore Roethke, for saying that for me, so perfectly.