Ida Payne
Professor Henderson
American Literature
October 25, 2014
In the poem “My Papa’s Waltz by Theodore Roethke the young protagonist provides his
perspective of an unpleasant memory as he looks back on time spent with his father during a
bedtime ritual. Child abuse is very prevalent in today’s society and can easily go unobserved and
ignored if we are not careful. Roethke’s choice of negative words, such as the father’s use of
whiskey, the child holding the father with a death grip and being beat on the head while being
carried off to bed illustrates the child’s unpleasant memory as well as possible signs of abuse.
The child’s first memory of the event with his father is “The whiskey on your breath could
