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Comment 29 of 59, added on October 13th, 2005 at 8:25 AM.
I don't think you can ignore the author's lifestyle with this poem. This poem may reveal that his father is dependent on him when he is drunk. It may also show a bit of abuse, but I really don't want to see it like that because that would be sad. I would rather his father be dependent on him.
Meg from United States
Comment 28 of 59, added on September 28th, 2005 at 10:37 AM.
It would appear at a cursory glance that the father is in a drunken state of euphoria, grabbing his boy and whirling him round in abandonment. Yes, he is drunk (the evidence is clear)but abusive? I don't think that's a fair comment. The relationship between father and son is a normal one, with pain and pleasure, hanging on like death and clinging to his shirt, unwilling to let go. The fact that the father waltzed him on to bed (and not the mother) suggests a closeness and fraternity between the two males. I would like to read the poem that way, without going into the poet's life.
shobha from Malaysia
Comment 27 of 59, added on September 27th, 2005 at 5:55 PM.
Waltzing with Papa- All the way through Life
Thesis on My Papa's Waltz
Mr. Bohannon
English 1
NCSA
Many believe that "My Papa's Waltz" simply depicts a happy evening in this young boy's life. However, there is a much more significant meaning. By looking closely at Roethke’s word choice and the images that they create, you can see that this poem reveals more than just dancing- you can see that Roethke uses this memory as a tool for retelling the story of his life in a simple poem.
To begin examining word choice, why is the title “My Papa’s Waltz”? A waltz is a dance for two people, so a more logical title would be “Waltzing with Papa” or perhaps even “Our Waltz”. The title is not even neutral- it could not be intended to mean that they are dancing together. It is very clearly the father’s, and it is as though he is dancing without concern for his young partner.
The poem begins with “The whiskey on your breath/ could make a small boy dizzy” (1.1-2). These lines imply that the father is drunk, and that this is his way of escaping from his hard life. The papa’s work was running two large greenhouses, says Linda Walker of Theodore Roethke, Michigan's Poet and it was a very high stress job. The fact that it is a tough, dirty job is expresses by his saying “The hand that held my wrist/ was battered on one knuckle” (3.1-2) and also “A hand caked hard by dirt” (4.2). This makes a point of showing how hard the father worked. We know that his job occasionally resulted in small injuries and always dirty hands. This tells that the father was not in an office all day- his hands were scarred from hard labor.
Before further exploring the father, we must take a look at the mother, Helen. Although she is only mentioned briefly, her presence makes a great impact on the poem. Linda Walker (Theodore Roethke, Michigan's Poet) writes that when Helen's “countenance could not unfrown itself”, her feelings were because her son was a very sickly child who suffered from hay fever, was forever sneezing, and had to sleep with his head completely wrapped. Also, her husband, Otto, was diagnosed with cancer, and the family was devasted (Walker). Her world was falling apart, and that is expressed in the second stanza: “The pan slid from the kitchen shelf”. Her life is becoming very hard, as she is now having to run half of her husband's portion (his brother, who was the co-owner, took the other half). She was having to sustain the family, while trying to help run a business. She was not angry because she didn't want her husband and son to have a good time, it was because of these concerns.
Mrs. Roethke, Theodore and his younger sister, June, "hung on like death" (1.3) to Mr. Roethke. Eventually, after a long battle with cancer, though, he died. I think that he showed this well in the last stanza. "You waltzed me off to bed/ still clinging to your shirt." (4.3-4) He is saying that his father meant a lot to him, that he was very attached, and that he was not an abusive father, like some readers would think at a first glance. This figruative way of speaking is really quite beautiful, and the only real way to read the poem. Roethke once told the Saginaw News "Any serious writer uses imagery he saw and heard and felt about in his youth." (Walker) This is the imagery that is most vivid to him. He is using it to express what love he had for his father. It is a story of love, not abuse, not just waltzing, and it was written as a memorial to his father, whose waltz inspired his love.
Elizabeth Freeman, 9th grader at North Carolina School of the Arts from United States
Comment 26 of 59, added on September 26th, 2005 at 6:09 PM.
Alissa, the poem wasn't DUMB, it was just not the kind of poetry we prefer. Although, making us spend a week analyzing it certainly doesn't make me like it any more. I think the father IS abusive, but that the boy loves him anyway, and the father isn't abusing him during the waltz as you seem to be thinking, but that the father has abused him in past, and the boy is happy he is not being abused at the present time. He loves his father, though the father treats him poorly, and he (the son) is glad to be spending time with his father, regardless of how he came by it (in this case, the father becoming drunk). Thus, he "holds on like death" and "cling[s] to [the] shirt." Haha, you used a "on one hand" and an "on the other hand," like she told us to. Now THERE'S something that deserves to be called dumb!
Desirae from United States
Comment 25 of 59, added on September 26th, 2005 at 1:53 PM.
Personally, I believe that this poem is about a druken father who is playing around with his son. We have discussed this poem in Language Arts class recently, and made some observations and inferences about the poem. According to that data, I don't see the father as abusive, but rather, just playfully drunk. On one hand, I found the choice of descriptive words and phrases very interesting. On the other hand, I thought the poem was DUMB!
Alissa from United States
Comment 24 of 59, added on September 15th, 2005 at 8:57 PM.
I agree that the poem might be confusing to some readers. Especially due to the choice of words like 'death', 'could not unfrown', '... ear scraped a buckle'. But considering the fact that Roethke loved his father a lot and even went into a state of depression after his father's death and most of him poems reflected on his life, brings me to the conclusion that there is no intended violance in this poem.
rona from Malaysia
Comment 23 of 59, added on September 11th, 2005 at 11:42 AM.
I believe that this poem My Papa's Waltz By: Theodore Roethke is not a sad story of a father that is abusive. Its a mere story of a dad who has had a few to many drinks and he and the little boy are just having a good time, playing around or rough housing. As for "We romped until the pan slid from the kitchen shelf" I believe that the boy and his father had just gotten out of hand and knocked over a few dishes which made the mother mad because possibly she had just cleaned the kitchen and now they were dirting it up again, which explains " My mother's countance could not unfrown itself." These are my views having to write on this topic for a thesis.
Sara Bunemann
(9th Grader at North Carolina School of the Arts)
Sara Bunemann from United States
Comment 22 of 59, added on September 10th, 2005 at 9:25 AM.
This poem is a recollection of this young man's childhood. His parents owned a greenhouse- hence the dirt the father's hand. This poem was written while Mr. Roethke was in the hospital for a severe depression. I think that it is just a happy memory of his father who died if cancer when his son was 15.
So this poem isn't literal- it is his life, in a simple poem.
Liz from United States
Comment 21 of 59, added on August 28th, 2005 at 8:44 PM.
I see a small boy who worshiped his father dispite his failings.Yes! his father drank,and was a bit rough. But he cared enough to at least see his son to bed,inspite of his condition.I get the impression that the boy did not like the whiskey breath,among other things, but in the end he clings to his father's shirt. This seems to indicate that at some point his father lifted him up in his arms. Then the boy though reluctant at first finaly gives in to his father's embrace as he is waltzed off to bed.
Ruth from United States
Comment 20 of 59, added on August 7th, 2005 at 1:40 AM.
This poem is NOT about abuse or alcoholism. Keep in mind that this poem was written in the year 1948. Looking back to the movies of the 40s and 50s as well as the sitcoms from the 50s such as "I Love Lucy" you will see a pattern of alcohol consumption being associated with comedy - not abuse. I think that the first line of this poem being read in modern times causes the tone of the poem to be taken out of context (especially in America) because our generation has been taught that drug and alcohol use only leads to misery. However, that was not the message of this poet who died in 1963.
Roethke's father owned a greenhouse. Although he was a stern man, Roethke and his father are reported to have had a good relationship. Roethke's father died when he was only 14 years old, and I think that this poem was written based upon a childhood memory of his father returning home from working in the greenhouse, after he had relaxed and had a drink or two which relaxed him. The fact that the father's hand was "battered on one knuckle" indicates that he was a hard working man, and "with a palm caked hard by dirt" reflects his father's work with the plants in the greenhouse.
There have been analyses of the rough drafts of Roethke's poem which show that the poet deliberately chose ambiguous words so that the feelings they would instill in the reader would not be precise. Unfortunately, this seems to make modern day readers believe there is abuse occurring in this poem. However, there is no evidence that the father is purposely mistreating the son, there is only evidence of rough play - but happy rough play. The father dances sloppily and misses some steps which inadvertently causes a belt buckle to scrape the child's ear, but the father didn't intentionally hurt him. The ambiguity that I believe this poet was striving for was to show that this enjoyable interaction between father and son ranges from delight to a small amount of fear - the type of fear that we may feel on a fast rollercoaster ride (the good kind that provides a little adrenalin rush).
When the father "beat time" on the boy's head Roethke deliberately chooses the word "beat" over the words "kept time" (per his rough drafts) most likely to increase the intensity of the interaction, but should not be mistaken to mean that the boy was beaten by his father or was hurt in any way.
What about the mother? Would a mother merely maintain a frown if the father was abusing the son? Wouldn't there be tears in her eyes, a cry of protest, something besides a description indicating that her face "could not unfrown itself?" Mom merely wishes that the rough play would end because they are knocking over pans and it is the child's bedtime. What mother doesn't tell a father to stop winding the children up just before bedtime?
The son enjoys the father's rough play. So much so that when it comes to an end and the father waltzes him off to bed, the son clings to the father's shirt because he does not want the good time to end.
My advice is that the reader should minimize the effect that the whiskey in the first line has on their perceptions of this poem. Not every man who has a glass of whiskey should be labeled a drunk, an alcoholic, or abusive. The scent of alcohol on someone's breath doesn't even mean that they are drunk or under the influence of alcohol, it only means that they had a drink. There's no crime in that, is there?
Susan
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I don't think you can ignore the author's lifestyle with this poem. This poem may reveal that his father is dependent on him when he is drunk. It may also show a bit of abuse, but I really don't want to see it like that because that would be sad. I would rather his father be dependent on him.
Meg from United States