Themes in ‘My Papa’s Waltz’ by Theodore Roethke
‘My Papa’s Waltz’ by the 20th century poet Theodore Roethke is a short yet perplexedly ambiguous
piece of poetry. It’s an intriguing poem that can be read as a rumination of a childhood romp with
one’s father or as an unpleasant memory of having to undergo the brutality of an alcoholic father.
Written with a blend of love, pain, nostalgia and humour, ‘My Papa’s Waltz’ doesn’t essentially have
a single theme to explore into but offers different spectacles of perspectives to delve into. According
to the critic McKenna, the holograph manuscripts of "My Papa's Waltz" confirm that Roethke himself
tried to balance the negative and positive tones of the poem, resulting in its rich ambiguity.
The Whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
In this first stanza, the poet mentions about the breath of whiskey he could sense from his father.
But to directly equate this imagery with the father being a drunkard is not fully acceptable, as having
a drink at the end of the day is just a way of life in the US. The boy hung on like death as he was
having a great fun time with his father and did not want to fall off and hinder the sheer joy of the
moment. Such waltzing is not easy as per the poet, wherein he is also trying to hint about the
callousness of his father while handling him as a boy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The mother who can only frown is obviously upset because of the kitchen utensils flying around, but
to associate her silence with clichéd topics of an unhappy married life or a broken family is pure
delusion. She is expressing her irritation passively and is annoyed about the carefree waltzing of the
father and son and like most of the mothers; she is also expressing her anger through silence and
expressions.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
This stanza can be misconceived if the reader is unaware of Roethke’s real-life relationship with his
father. Roethke’s father was a Gardner and owned a nursery in Michigan. To conceive the situation
on autobiographical and realistic grounds, his father’s hand would have been battered on one
knuckle because of all the gardening and not as he had been subjecting his family members to
physical atrocities. Even though the poet’s father, Otto Roethke, had been known to be violent with
poachers, no violence was ever directed towards his family.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
From a boy’s point of view, he is ecstatic to have had horsed around with his father and indeed
wants to continue to be with his father, clinging on to his shirt, even though it’s past bedtime. And
the readers, who are jumping into the conclusions of child abuse and lacking emotions, are deducing
out of the blue, without completing to read the entire poem.
As McKenna had pointed out in his essay, Roethke has incorporated the correct revisions to balance
the negative and positive tones in My Papa’s Waltz. The poem which was majorly reworked and
initially had two manuscripts is essentially a modernist piece of poetry that attempts to address for
oneself than considering the whole wide sphere of readers. Yet, there lies beauty in the simple use
of phrases and words, which are charmingly dubious.
This poem avoids all the psychobabble about family and parental relationships. It’s a poem woven
out of simple yet profound images. Every image needs to be deeply contemplated to absorb its
wealth of childhood emotions. It‘s a poem worth being memorized for life.
References
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McKenna, John J. "Roethke's Revisions And The Tone Of 'My Papa's Waltz.'" Anq 11.2 (1998):
34-38. Literary Reference Center. Web. 11 Aug. 2014.
Roethke, Theodore. "My Papa's Waltz." The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke. Garden City,
NY: Anchor, 1975. N. pag. Print.