My Papa's Waltz Poem Analysis

"My Papa's Waltz" is one of most popular contemporary poems written by Theodore Roethke. The poem was first published in 1942 by Heast Magazines, Inc. from The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke. It is a poem about a boy recalling a time with his father while they share a dance of waltz. This poem consists of four quatrains written in iambic trimeter with a simple rhyme scheme. It uses imagery, metaphors, and simile to invoke a strong impression. Each image captures an emotional richness all told from an innocent point of view of a child. At first glance, this poem has a tone of playfulness that captures the bond between father and son. Yet as one looks closely, the poem has a curious ambiguity that evokes multiple interpretations. The use of sardonic words to describe an affectionate moment is misleading and ultimately the readers are left to wonder whether the boy in the poem is suggesting some type of abuse or
commemorating his utmost respect for his father. The obscurity therefore raises a lot of questions and assumptions effectively losing the meaning that this poem seems to represent. Deconstruction is a form of critical approach that is useful in reading this poem. According to Steven Lynn in Texts and Contexts, “Deconstruction reveals the arbitrariness of language most strikingly by exposing the contradictions in a discourse, thereby showing how a text undermines itself” (107). This literary tool question and unsettle the assumption that a language provides any sort of established meanings. To understand this further, a helpful concept is the binary opposition because using this will allow one to search for the contrasts and the alternatives between mutually exclusive ideas and to do so in such a way that the ranking indicated by the alternatives is thrown into question. Therefore, a fixed meaning of the text can never be proven due to the indeterminate nature of language. In order to deconstruct a written work, one must first analyze the work, then find what weakens that work through the use of arbitrariness, where the meaning of a word is open to any explanation. Put another way, a deconstructionist initially works to uncover the meaning associated with the literary work, identify the oppositions in the text, find the element that unifies these oppositions, and then dissect the meaning. This can make deconstruction a misleading activity because one might see this as a way to disregard what the author is trying to convey on the written work. That should not be the case as deconstruction aims for one to read differently. A conscious reading of a text means realizing that what the critics get out of the text is closely related to a figurative association that one may not even be aware of. By doing this work, critics acknowledge that the text has no boundaries because it has multiple meaning and it delights in creating doubt causing any conviction to crumble away. “My Papa’s Waltz” is a short yet effective poem that is filled with ambiguities, tensions, and metaphors, well articulated to create a unified piece of writing.
The tone and subject create a major impact to the overall theme of the poem, creating a strong emotional connection to the boy's experience. It is evident from the author’s use of the title, “My Papa’s Waltz.” Its transparency sets up the readers’ expectation before we even read the first line. This allows the author to focus on the lyrical form and wordplay of the poem eliminating the need to explain the situation any further. A waltz is a ballroom dance that comes with a rhythmic beat of three which mimics the prevailing iambic trimeter of the poem. Furthermore, the alternating rhymes in the poem metaphorically tie in with the constant swaying back and forth found in waltz dancing. The waltzing in the poem signifies an extended metaphor for the father-son relationship, therefore, is also symbolic and ultimately ties in organically to the sensitive and delicate significance of this
poem. On the first stanza, Roethke quickly establishes the mood of this poem with a situation full of ambiguity. It is important therefore to use close reading to carefully weigh all the possible interpretations. “The whiskey on your breath, Could make a small boy dizzy; But I hung on like death: Such waltzing was not easy” (lines 1-4). From these lines, the narrator is recalling his experience as a young boy dancing with his father under the influence of an alcoholic beverage. The choice of words from the author suggests sacrifice and reverence, for he needs to endure the dizzying effects of the smell of whiskey in his father’s breath making the waltz difficult. The word death connotes a dark start to the poem. It can mean that he was terrified or feared for his life or that he was having fun and did not want to fall off as he admits that “such waltzing was not easy.” The figures of speech play a role in analyzing this poem further. Alliteration is present in this first stanza using the words whisky, waltzing, and was. This gives the poem a nice flow of rhythm contrasting the negativity. From these words, there is resistance and there is surrender and is suggestive of the son’s simultaneous respect and fear for his father.