My Papa'S Waltz
Essay by 24 • December 12, 2010 • 661 Words (3 Pages) • 1,755 Views
Many of the words and phrases in Theodore Roethke's poem, "My Papa's Waltz," could be misinterpreted as indicating physical abuse between the father and son in the poem without a prior knowledge of Roethke's relationship with his immigrant father, Otto Roethke. A close reading and analysis of the poem and research into Roethke's life help to avoid such misreadings.
According to Karl Malkoff, Roethke had a deep, almost religious respect for his father. This respect was religious (in a Christian sense) because Roethke had an admiration for his father's ability, yet he was fearful of his strength. To the young Roethke, who had followed his father around the greenhouses that his father owned and worked in, Otto was the man who made the flowers grow, and like so many young boys, Roethke idolized his father.
Of course, the young Roethke also had good reason to fear and respect his father's firmness. According to Malkoff, Roethke once saw his father bring a couple of poachers to a halt with his rifle and then go and slap their faces for interrupting his work. "Otto Roethke, a Prussian through and through, was strong and firm, but his strength was, for his son, a source of both admiration and fear, of comfort and restriction" (Malkoff 4). This fear, combined with the love and awe-inspired dependency that a son has for his father, comes out clearly in the poem.
Many readers of the first stanza jump to the conclusion that the father and son in this poem are locked in some sort of dark dance of death and the boy is in some sort of danger. Certainly, the father and son are not "waltzing" in the conventional sense; they are horseplaying. The rhythmic
romp of the waltz can be felt in the poet's iambic trimetrical quatrains.
In this first stanza, Roethke mentions the whisky on his father's breath but certainly does not portray him as a stumbling drunk. Many people drink alcohol in the evening without becoming intoxicated. Also, the boy "hung on like death" (line 3) not because he was terrified or feared for his life but because he was having fun and did not want to fall off . . . such waltzing is not easy!This was a rowdy waltz and the dancing pair did make quite a ruckus but in lines seven and eight Roethke says that the mother's
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