Summary Of My Papa's Waltz

Upon reading Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” one would think the poem entirely talks about the dance and how it was special and memorable to the speaker just by the title. However, this ‘waltz’ is interpreted many different ways in the poem. The poem starts off describing the speaker’s presumed father’s smell of “whiskey on your breath” to show that he was drinking heavily (Roethke 1). This smell can also be described as quite strong because of the fact that it “could make a small boy dizzy” (2). This then makes the reader think why is an intoxicated father ‘dancing’ with his child. Then in the third line, “hung on” could imply that the speaker is holding on per say to the steps to the dance if they were indeed dancing and also because such steps
“were not easy” (3-4). This supports the duo may have been dancing such waltz and the speaker is merely describing her grasp of the dance. They can also be dancing due to the fact that the speaker describes that the “pans slid from the kitchen shelf” (5-6). But this could also show an aggressive situation due to the raged nature of romping and because the mother doesn’t seem to be very amused by the ruckus. The mother’s unchanged facial expression can also show that the home situation isn’t joyful and she’s indeed bothered by something possibly marriage, an abusive household, or even depression. However we are unsure because this is the only moment that she is mentioned. The third stanza shifts back to the speaker’s father and describing his attributes. The speaker describes his hand that holds them as “battered on one knuckle” possibly showing that it was injured somehow (10).
Due to the fact that at the beginning of the poem he was drinking, this could show he gets aggressive while intoxicated. But could also show that he’s injured because he works hard and endlessly due to his “palm” being “caked by dirt” mentioned in the last stanza (14). Again back to his drinking and them dancing, the speaker says that every time he “missed” a step the speaker hurt their ear on “a buckle” (11-12). This shows the speaker is short in height and young compared their father, but is still unclear of the gender of the speaker. In the last stanza the speaker is shown to have fallen asleep by being “waltzed . . . off to bed” by her father (15). This can imply that the speaker is small enough to be held and possibly was rocked to sleep just as small children would cling on to the shirt as the speaker did. Throughout the poem the speaker seems to be remembering something due to their use of past tense and could be the reason of the use of the word waltz. Just as the waltz is a series of steps and actions, the speaker wanted to show their father’s steps or actions and possibly didn’t want to repeat the steps exactly and wanted to better their
self.