My Papa's Waltz : Critism

Marisa Anne Pagnattaro

Marissa Anne Pagnattaro is a writer and teaching assistant at the Unversity of Georgia, Athens. In the following essay, Pagnattaro provides a stanza by stanza analysis of “My Papa’s Waltz.

Is this a narrative poem about a sentimental joyful romp or a fearful incident of violent abuse at the hands of an alcoholic father? Critics are often polarized into one of these two extreme views of Theodore Roethke’s 1948 poem, “My Papa’s Waltz,” yet neither interpretation adequately captures the full range of the speaker’s emotion. The adult speaker recalls this vivid scene with his father, revealing the complicated interplay between what was nearly an overwhelming experience for him as a child, but is now merely a poignant remembrance.

Although reading the poem as purely autobiographical is too limiting, a few details from Roethke’s life provide an enlightening background. As a child, Roethke’s father, Otto, immigrated from Germany with his parents who had bought land in the United States to establish a market garden. Financially successful in this endeavor, the family eventually started a florist business, which was continued by Otto. Roethke, who lived in a house adjacent to the greenhouse, was powerfully influenced by both the life-giving process of growing plants and his father’s gift of nurturing beautiful flowers. This admiration, however, was entangled with feelings of ambivalence. For instance, Roethke’s stern father held extremely high expectations that were not always possible for his son to achieve. Moreover, Roethke was never able to fully reconcile his feelings before his father’s death; after a long illness. Otto died of cancer when Roethke was in high school. Later, when Roethke was in his late thirties, he wrote “My Papa’s Waltz” as part of a collection of poems titled The Lost Son. In these poems, Roethke seems to be exploring ways to come to terms with his childhood and adolescence. “My Papa’s Waltz,” an introspective look at a young boy’s relationship with his father, is rooted in a continuation of that self-scrutiny.

Even though the title seems to be addressed to a general audience of readers, in effect asserting “I am going to tell you about ‘My Papa’s Waltz,’” the speaker directly addresses his father in the poem. This appears to be a form of tribute to the father, in the sense that it recounts a memory of closeness — albeit fraught with some childhood anxiety. As an adult, the speaker seems to appreciate his father’s rather clumsy attempt to show his paternal love. Emphasizing the father’s awkwardness, Roethke plays with his readers’ notions of the waltz. The overall rhythm of the verse follows the cadence of waltz rhythm, a graceful flowing melody in triple time. The poem begins with a strong first beat, followed by two lighter beats, with the second of these being an upbeat “pushing” into the new first beat. More simply stated, the rhythm is a repetition of: ONE two three ONE two three.

“Roethke seems to be exploring ways to come to terms with his childhood and adolescence. ‘My Papa’s Waltz,’ an introspective look at a young boy’s relationship with his father, is rooted in a continuation of that self-scrutiny.”

By using the waltz steps, Roethke gives his readers a feel for the movement of the dance. There are, however, a few “missteps” in the form of an extra syllable for emphasis. In five of the lines the extra beat interrupts the smooth flow of the dance. These rhythmic disturbances provide readers with a palpable sense of the clumsiness of the actual dance.

The first stanza opens with the vivid image of the father’s hot whisky breath, an odor that the speaker recalls was potent enough to make him feel giddy and confused as a child. Significantly, he “hung on like death” with great dramatic tenacity because “Such waltzing was not easy.” The evening dance is nearly overpowering for the young boy. This is underscored by the second and fourth lines that contain the extra beat. The effect is to slightly throw off the controlled waltz cadence, which effectively conveys an air of the father’s perceptible intoxication. It is unclear how much the father has had to drink, but an inference of at least slight inebriation permeates the poem.

The potential seriousness of the “death” image in the third line, however, is undercut in the first line of the second stanza by the use of the word “romped.” This unmistakably frolicsome term suggests the lively play of children, not a boy victimized by his father. Moreover, the pans “slide” from the shelf, as if unobtrusively moved along the surface from the vibration of their dance as opposed to a reckless drunken careening about the room. The pair cavort in the kitchen, ostensibly the mother’s domain. Oddly enough in a lyric directed to his father, the speaker refers to his mother as “My mother,” creating distance between his two parents. The use of the formal term “mother” stands in sharp contrast to the much more familiar term “Papa.” Perhaps this is indicative of the closeness that the speaker feels toward his father. In any event, the mother’s appearance in the poem adds a brief third-party perspective to the memory. She looks on in clear wrinkled-brow disapproval. Her displeasure presumably stems from a number of sources, including her isolation from the waltzing play, her irritation about husband’s drinking, and her perception that her young son is being dragged about the room. Significantly, she holds back, not intervening and allowing the rollick to carry on.

Throughout the two remaining stanzas, the dance continues as a metaphor for the speaker’s fearfully loving relationship with his somewhat rough father. Like Roethke’s father, the father in the poem makes his living with his hands. One knuckle is “battered,” suggesting it has been subjected to repeated assault at work. Instead of holding his son’s hand, which would be customary with waltz partners, the father clasps his son’s wrist. Unable to follow his father’s unsteady lead, the boy’s right ear scrapes against his father’s belt buckle every time his father misses a step. The use of “scraped” creates a physically painful image, yet the speaker evidences no negative emotion toward his father. He merely reports on the scene and uses the extra syllable in the second and fourth lines in the third stanza to once again prompt speculation that the father’s waltzing ability is impaired by alcohol.

The fourth and final stanza echoes the images already established in the poem. With a palm “caked hard by dirt,” the father repeatedly hits his son on the head “beating time.” These lines, coupled with the preceding stanza, could suggest the speaker’s less-than-consensual engagement in the dance, yet the overall lilt of the poem belies such a harsh reading. The two concluding lines are riddled with the speaker’s ambivalence as the result of differences in his adult and childhood perspectives: “Then waltzed me off to bed / Still clinging to your shirt.” The use of the word “clinging” prompts multiple readings. He could be holding on tightly out of fear of his father, in apprehension that he might be knocked to the floor in a misstep. He could also, however, desire to remain close or in contact with his father out of a sense of great attachment, refusing to abandon the connection he feels. In the end, there is something warm about the image of the father dancing his son off to be tucked in for the night.

It is easy for readers to visualize the speaker as a young boy with one hand clinging to his father’s shirt, his other arm outstretched with his wrist clasped in his father’s hand, feet on his father’s feet, in a dangling pre-bed dance. Even though there is a sense of the speaker’s uncertainty about the event as a boy, there is an air of nostalgia in the scene for the speaker as an adult, ultimately producing a loving re-creation of the dance with his father.

Source: Marissa Anne Pagnattaro, in a essay for Poetry for Students, Gale, 1998.