Literary Analysis of the Poem My Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke (Essay Example)

As a child has there ever been a time that something playful ended up turning into abuse? Theodore Roethke born on May 25, 1908, authored a poem called “My Papa’s Waltz” that depicted this very scenario. This poem could be taken in many ways from a father and son just playing around but could also be showing the abuse from a father to his child. While Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz” shows some evidence towards him and his father playing around in the beginning, the poem ends up showing more abuse than playfulness. 

Roethke’s poem shows us that the father is being abusive towards him. It all begins in the beginning of the poem when it says, “The whiskey on your breath / could make a small boy dizzy” (lines 1-2). These two lines show us that his father was a heavy drinker due to how much his breath smelled of whiskey. But this is not the only example of his father being abusive in this poem. This is because there are examples such as “At every step you missed / My right ear scraped a buckle” (lines 11-12). This line shows that whenever the father made a mistake, he took his anger out on his son. Both examples show obvious signs of abuse in the poem. 

In the poem there are also some small signs of this being just playfulness rather than abuse, but these details are overshadowed by the strong signs of abuse. The only clear sign of playfulness is when it says, “We romped until the pans / slid from the kitchen shelf” (lines 5-6). The word romped means playing roughly and energetically. This shows from the boy’s perspective what was happening in the beginning felt like they were just playing around. This line leans towards playfulness but the rest of the poem leans more towards abuse. More than half of the poem has strong signs of abuse which overshadows the one line that shows playfulness. Lines like “At every step you missed / My right ear scraped a buckle” (lines 11-12) show the abuse in the poem.  

Overall, the poem points more towards abuse than it does towards playfulness. This is because there is only one line that points towards playfulness. On the other hand, the entire rest of the poem shows abuse. This in turn ends up overshadowing the one line of playfulness.