My Papa's Waltz By Theodore Roethke

Throughout the ages, authors have been known to use many of their life experiences in their literary works. They use certain moments that have been imprinted in their heads, because in some way these specific experiences have changed their lives. For instance, Theodore Roethke wrote the poem, “My Papa’s Waltz” in which he writes about a moment from his early childhood that probably affected him so deeply that he was never able to forget about it. This shows that certain moments in our childhood are particularly crucial to the way we turn out to be as adults. In “My Papa’s Waltz”, Roethke confuses the reader because the poem reminisces a specific event in his life in which he describes a time when his father got home from work with alcohol in his breath. The line “The whiskey on your breath, could make a small boy dizzy” [1-2] shows that Roethke’s father probably had a substantial amount of alcohol in his body, enough to not only make him drunk but also make his son a bit dizzy from the smell. With this line alone, one can automatically jump to the conclusion that the father was an alcoholic, thus, making the reader’s mind set on that the father was a bad person due to his substance abuse problem. However, when one keeps reading the poem, one realizes that all the way through the end Roethke clings on to his father’s shirt.
This automatically causes a shock to the reader because it would be common sense to get away from a drunken, mean person. Nevertheless, it may be possible that the father in fact smelled like alcohol but he was actually not drunk. Maybe he was just coming home from a long day of work, had a bit of whiskey, and now he was putting his son off to bed. Since we can never be certain on what really happened, we cannot figure out if the poet remembers this moment as a positive or negative experience. Moreover, in the book “ Making Literature Matter” by John Schilb and John Clifford, there is a brief biography of Roethke’s life where it explains that his father has influenced much of his work. This shows that whatever went on at home when Roethke was young gave him a lasting impression all through his life. In his poem “My Papa’s Waltz” he makes his father the main character but at the same time he explains what was going in his head as his father was putting him off to bed. By doing so, one can infer that at the time Roethke’s main center of attention was his father. Also, the mother is only mentioned once with the line “ My mother’s countenance could not unfrown itself” [7-8]. This specific line shows that even though he acknowledged the fact that his mother was part of the household, his whole attention went to his father. Whether he admired or despised his father, most of Roethke’s attention went to him. Furthermore, with the title itself one can see that he emphasizes his father’s influence on not only his writing but for his life as a whole.
When anyone uses a specific person for a title, it is because that person has made such an impact on us that we must express it to the world. With a title like “ My Papa’s Waltz” the reader could again get confused because of the fact that at first the tone of the poem seems to be sort of bitter towards the father, but when one sees the word “Waltz” in the title one can only think about something nice and peaceful. Thus, making it very complicated to try to understand how the author viewed his
father. Although most of the poem seems to portray Roethke’s father as an abusive alcoholic man, I believe that the whole poem is merely a cover to what was really going at the time of Roethke’s childhood. “Still clinging to your shirt” [16] is a powerful statement because if Roethke was being physically abused, then he would have not been clinging on to his father’s shirt the whole time. Therefore, I think that the whole poem actually represents the opposite of what the author actually wrote. “The hand that held my wrist was battered on one knuckle” [9-10] could actually be an exaggeration of the way Roethke’s father was touching him. Maybe Roethke use “battered” to create a shocking effect on the reader, and the father was actually holding his hand gently. In another example, if one keeps analyzing the poem further, the line “My mother’s countenance could not unfrown itself” [7-8] can in fact be the proof that throughout the whole poem nothing bad is really going on. The fact that the mother basically stands there allowing the father and the son have their little “dance” means that nothing that horrible is happening. It would be common sense that if a mother is witnessing the beating of her own son, she would immediately do whatever possible to free her child from any suffering. Also, it may be possible that the mother had a smile hidden in her “frown”. Many people seem to be frowning, but in fact they are just so overwhelmed with a feeling, which makes them frown instead of smile. In the end, one can see that the experiences of our past are what make us who we are in the present. Sometimes we go through many good and bad experiences that teach us a lesson on how to overcome the problems that may arise in our everyday life. Also, these experiences teach us how to be stronger and more mature. With Roethke as an example, we can see that one person can change the outcome of our lives. In Roethke’s case, his father influenced him in such a way that it made him become a writer and share many of the experiences with the outside world. No matter how or why a person changes our life, all that matters is the fact that they did, and that we learned from that experience and got something positive out of it. Again we do not know if Roethke regarded his father with fondness or bitterness, but however it may be, his father was surely a big part of his inspiration in life.