Theodore Roethkes Poem My Papas Waltz - Literature review 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. To illustrate how this is done, Theodore Roethke’s poem “My Papa’s Waltz” will be analyzed in terms of subject, word choice, literary elements and rhythm. 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. Still, despite these danger words and the ominous feeling they engender, the consideration that the poem is about child abuse remains somehow unsatisfactory. The poem does not seem that sinister, after all, and the reader is left to question why they are caught somewhere between a happy childhood memory and a thinly disguised scene of abuse. Part of the answer to this question lies within the specific rhythm, rhyme and meter the poet has assigned to this poem. It takes no more than a quick glance down the lines of the poem to discover an ABAB CDCD rhyme scheme to the poem in which each stanza has its own rhyming pairs. This is reminiscent of childhood nursery rhymes that, coupled with the sing-song chant of the meter, instill an innocent quality to the lines. However, many nursery rhymes are as full of violence as they are of joy, so there are few answers to be found here. Perhaps because the poem is about a waltz, a dance based upon three beats, the poem is also structured in iambic trimeter, meaning there are three stressed syllables, or feet, within each line. This is discerned within the first two lines of the poem: “The whiskey on your breath / Could make a small boy dizzy” (1-2). In these lines, the beat is naturally read with the following stresses, although they are perhaps not as emphasized as they are here: “the WHIS-key ON your BREATH / could MAKE a SMALL boy DIZ-zy.” This type of analysis demonstrates how Roethke controlled the pace of reading into a sing-song chant that leaves the reader anxious to continue at the end of the first line by ending with a stressed syllable and then provides room to pause at the end of the second line with an unstressed syllable. While this pattern is repeated in the first and third stanzas, a different pattern emerges in the second and fourth stanzas: “we ROMP-ed un-TIL the PANS / slid FROM the KIT-chen SHELF” (5-6). Here, every line is ended on a stress, building up pressure and excitement at one and the same time. This energetic beat is again equally applicable to a scene of joy as it is to a scene of violence, so there is something else that keeps the poem from definitively describing abuse yet prevents it from undeniably illustrating joy. The fact that the poem ends on a stressed beat ensures that the reader is left with a sense of tension, but it remains impossible to determine whether that tension should be considered positive as in excitement or negative as in pain. The poem is full of images of things falling apart, filling it with the type of negativity that engenders ominous thoughts that perhaps the boy is presenting a fanciful and less painful rendition of child abuse. In considering the dance itself, Roethke blatantly states that it was not easy. Pans fall from the shelf, indicating poor construction within their dwelling and little if no means of repairing what must have been a recurring problem. The mother’s expression remains fixed in a frown. She is so deeply unhappy that even the touching scene of a father and son playing together cannot soften her sadness. The man’s hand is battered, whether from fighting or working is not made clear, but that it is not the hand of a pampered office worker is made undeniably clear with the inclusion of information that the father’s hand is also caked hard by dirt. The father has been missing steps, forcing his family, particularly his son, to “scrape a buckle”, perhaps symbolic of going without a basic necessity of life. Thus, while Roethke may not be denoting abuse, the negative emotion felt when finishing the poem is explained as it becomes clear that the family is falling apart, perhaps as the result of the father’s drinking, as it is this that causes the young boy to become dizzy as his world becomes unstable. There are also plenty of indications that this is a nostalgic, happy memory, perhaps the last time the son and the father had a chance to play before the father ‘went away.’ He says he “hung on like death” (3) despite being dizzy and mixed up because he loved his father and wanted to be with him. He talks about how they “romped” and noted but ignored the mother’s unhappy look, suggesting his father was a source of fun and play while his mother was a source of toil and discipline. His sensations of his father, a hand that holds his wrist, a buckle that scrapes his ear and a hand that keeps time on his head, are all sensations he, as a young child, can remember without any of the negative connotations an older child would associate with a drunken father. Finally, as the boy is placed in bed, the last image of him is as he remains “still clinging to your shirt” (16). Here is the happiness and the joy, in the remembrance of being happy and feeling safe in the strong and rough embrace of a father who would soon be gone, having fun with him yet still remembering the sensations that denoted him as a rough working man, doing his best but not able to hold things together for his son. 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. 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

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. Still, despite these danger words and the ominous feeling they engender, the consideration that the poem is about child abuse remains somehow unsatisfactory. The poem does not seem that sinister, after all, and the reader is left to question why they are caught somewhere between a happy childhood memory and a thinly disguised scene of abuse.

Part of the answer to this question lies within the specific rhythm, rhyme and meter the poet has assigned to this poem. It takes no more than a quick glance down the lines of the poem to discover an ABAB CDCD rhyme scheme to the poem in which each stanza has its own rhyming pairs. This is reminiscent of childhood nursery rhymes that, coupled with the sing-song chant of the meter, instill an innocent quality to the lines. However, many nursery rhymes are as full of violence as they are of joy, so there are few answers to be found here.

Perhaps because the poem is about a waltz, a dance based upon three beats, the poem is also structured in iambic trimeter, meaning there are three stressed syllables, or feet, within each line. This is discerned within the first two lines of the poem: “The whiskey on your breath / Could make a small boy dizzy” (1-2). In these lines, the beat is naturally read with the following stresses, although they are perhaps not as emphasized as they are here: “the WHIS-key ON your BREATH / could MAKE a SMALL boy DIZ-zy.

” This type of analysis demonstrates how Roethke controlled the pace of reading into a sing-song chant that leaves the reader anxious to continue at the end of the first line by ending with a stressed syllable and then provides room to pause at the end of the second line with an unstressed syllable. While this pattern is repeated in the first and third stanzas, a different pattern emerges in the second and fourth stanzas: “we ROMP-ed un-TIL the PANS / slid FROM the KIT-chen SHELF” (5-6).

Here, every line is ended on a stress, building up pressure and excitement at one and the same time. This energetic beat is again equally applicable to a scene of joy as it is to a scene of violence, so there is something else that keeps the poem from definitively describing abuse yet prevents it from undeniably illustrating joy. The fact that the poem ends on a stressed beat ensures that the reader is left with a sense of tension, but it remains impossible to determine whether that tension should be considered positive as in excitement or negative as in pain.

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