My Papa’s Waltz
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
—Theodore Roethke
Literary devices/elements:
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imagery
simile
alliteration
extended metaphor
contrast – between perception and reality (mother’s perception, son’s perception), in
diction – “waltzing” and “step you missed,” structured rime scheme and content/lack of
consistent meter
diction – “dizzy,” “death,”
rhyme scheme, poetic structure
contrast, contrasting elements
tone
Analysis:
The Theodore Roethke poem, “My Papa’s Waltz,” describes the distorted “waltz” of a boy
and his father in the kitchen as a result of the father’s intoxication, and it uses the dance as an
extended metaphor for the physical beating or just careless roughhousing of a drunken father
with his son. The poem’s ambiguity allows for multiple interpretations. The title signals whose
waltz it is –- not the boy’s, but his papa’s--- to establish that the boy is not a participant by
choice but by his father’s choice, which introduces the element of contrast. This element of
contrast is the vehicle which conveys the complexity of the poem, thereby enabling Roethke to
explore the complexity of relationships and perspective so poignantly.
The diction is simple and straightforward but also conveys fear and hints of violence. The
word choice ranges from “romped” to “battered” and from “waltzed” to “scraped,” which
mirrors the emotional scope of this memory. The powerlessness of the child is demonstrated by
being held by his wrist and by hanging on “like death” during the waltz. The relationship of the
father and the mother is exemplified by her inability to “unfrown” her countenance while being
powerless to halt the wild disarray of the kitchen, which represents her domain, symbolizing
their conflict and the resultant complexity of this family dynamic. Still “clinging to [his father’s]
shirt” at the end, Roethke manages to convey the love that the boy has for his father – in spite of
the father’s transgressions and obvious intoxication (possible alcoholism). By using the word
“clinging,” in the last line of the poem, in opposition to “hung” used in the first stanza, Roethke
suggests that the boy loves his father, even though his father is flawed and his drunken actions
are at times frightening. Further ambiguity is provided by the contrasts of the gentle image of
waltzing the boy off to bed, the battered knuckle, and “the palm caked with dirt.” How did his
hand become battered? Was he injured either through his work or in a violent confrontation
during his drinking? Is his palm dirtied in a fall or as a result of carelessness or manual labor?
The missed step during the dance may be as simple as staggering while intoxicated but may
represent missteps in the father/son relationship.
Additionally, the a/b, a/b rime scheme enhances the playful diction used in the poem, such as
“dizzy” and “easy,” and “knuckle” and “buckle,” and also underscores the contrast between
Roethke’s tone in the poem, which is one of conflicted view that boy has of his father. The order
of lines and pattern of the rime stands in direct opposition to the drunkenness of the father and
the arrhythmic waltz. Comprised of four stanzas, with four lines in each stanza, the poem
exhibits a consistent, external rime scheme and structured pattern, perhaps reflecting the
narrator’s point of view – the adult speaker narrating his past experiences; however, the lack of
an organized, consistent meter lies in direct contrast to the external structure of the poem,
echoing the lack of structure in the dance and also mimicking the father’s inebriated waltz.
The single, unifying element of the poem lies in the complexity of the contrasts:
 the speaker as a child contrasted with remembering the event as an adult
 drunkenness of the father contrasted with the sobriety of the mother and son
 the rhythmic contrast of “waltzing” with “romping” and missed steps
 the orderly rime scheme and poetic structure utilized by the author while describing a
scene of disorder and without a structured meter
 the sober mother and son contrasted with the drunken father
 the internal conflict that the boy has as he struggles to reconcile his love for his father
with the harmful reality of alcoholism
 simplicity of the diction with the complexity of the situation