In the poem “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, the speaker is recalling a childhood
experience involving his father. The father has had a little bit too much to drink, and is
now waltzing around the kitchen with his son. The waltz seems pretty awkward – the
father is knocking everything off of the shelves, and the mom is not too thrilled about it.
While some may think that the poem is implying parental abuse, I believe that it shows a
happy relationship between the father and son. Throughout the poem we see this
relationship through Roethke’s use of symbolism, tone, and themes.
The name of the poem implies that there would be dancing but it seems to symbolize the
relationship between the father and son, as well as violence. In the first few lines of the
poem, we clearly see that the father is intoxicated, which is a situation that usually ends to
violence. Line 3, “But I hung on like death” can be a simile giving us the idea that death is
coming, by describing the waltz as inescapable just as death. The boy has to hang on to his
father “like death” which shows that the waltz must have been frightening as well as “not
easy”. In line 4 of the poem, “ Such waltzing was not easy” we see that the child is not
having too much fun dancing with his child. The waltz might serve as an extended
metaphor of the father and son’s relationship, the son’s entire relationship with his father
was not easy as well. In line 5, “We romped until the pans”
the waltz is actually being described as a romp because of the ruckus the father has been
making. The situation seems enjoyable, but is still not fun for the child. In stanza 3 the fact
that the father misses steps and accidentally hurts his son can be a metaphor of the father’s
mistakes in life as well as the possibility of him hurting his son in a non physical way. The
father is not trying to be violent but is unintentionally hurting his son. Throughout the
poem words such as “beat” and “battered” are used in a negative connotation and may
actually give readers the idea of the poem being about an abusive relationship between the
father and son. In the last stanza of the poem, there is an image of the father waltzing his
