The Interpretation Of My Papa's Waltz By Theodore Roethke

Theodore Roethke’s poem,” My Papa’s Waltz” is one that can be interpreted in two ways. For some they say that the boy is enjoying the dance with his father, others say he does not. Neither interpretation can be definitively correct because that decision is solely up to the reader. It is up to that individual reader to weigh every aspect of the story and come to their own conclusion on what it all meant. The stance for this essay will be that, “My Papa’s Waltz” has a negative connotation because of how it is written, the words used, and what is happening within the story.

When reading this poem the reader gets many different emotions and is constantly having to think in-depth about what each line could really mean. The poem has this effect
It can be seen in the third line of the poem, “But I hung on like death:” (3), in the word “death.” Using a word like that is not common for the situation it was used in and as a result it makes the reader have to think what it could mean. The concept of death is one that affects all things living, a natural and unavoidable inevitability of life. Due to this fact it is not a stretch to say that death’s clutches are strong enough that nothing can escape it. It is in this sense of the word that Roethke describes just how hard the boy in holding onto his father. The word death also carries a sort of natural negatively with it which helps to overall dark tone move along with the story. Later on our speaker describes part of their dance when he says, “At every step you missed / My right ear scraped a buckle.” (11-12). The word buckle is far from an uncommon word but it does carry some weight in this context. The context for this poem being the potential abuse of this young boy. This negative context is further pushed with the mention of the buckle and by extension the belt it would be attached to, being one of the most common and stereotypical instruments of domestic abuse. The way a story is written and the words used within it are very important, but at the end of the day it is essential to comprehend exactly what is going on in the story for a true understanding of it to be
The same goes for, “My Papa’s Waltz” so it is important to take a close look at the events of the story so any interpretation made can be made with the best evidence. The first two lines of the opening stanza go like this,” The whisky on your breath / Could make a small boy dizzy;” (1-2), right off the bat we are told that his father has drank so much that the vapors around him can affect his small boy, whom he is waltzing off to bed. A few lines later the waltz is described in more detail,” We romped until the pans / Slid from the kitchen shelf;” (5-6), this tells us that the boy obviously did not go willingly, since it caused enough ruckus to rattle the pans in the kitchen. To recap he is being taken to bed, where he doesn’t want to go, by his drunken father who is manhandling him considerably. This is a very unpleasant situation and one the young boy is most likely not enjoying on any level. Some may argue that this is actually a story of a young boy longing to spend more time with his father, but when lines like, “At every step you missed / My right ear scraped a buckle.” (11-12), show us that the young boy is literally getting injured by this dance. Albeit only a minor injury with only limited pain, but regardless of the pain level it would still be an uncomfortable thing to go through