i wish i was doing anything but blogging about english right now i wouldn't even mind waltzing with my dad who's breath could probably get me drunk! The poem my Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke really makes you become a critical thinker because you think about it in two ways the small boy is either being beaten or his dads a drunk who likes to play rough. Theres so many questions you have to ask yourself when reading the poem like how pleasant can it actually be to be made dizzy by your fathers breath,what kind of "romping" would have to happen in order to make the pans slide from the shelfs, and how fun does it sound to hold on like death? to me these are all reasonable questions to ask but there are so many different views on this poem its hard to know which one is right. I see this poem as a boy loving his father and truly liking all the romping around and the wrist holding when getting waltzed all the way to bed. It seems harmless and just playful, but i do understand where people come from when they say that they think the father could be beating him so it leaves me very torn between these two possibilities . Due to the fact that it clearly states the " mothers countenance\ could not unfrown itself" she could not smile but was it because the father was drunk and hurting her child whom she loves so dearly or could it just have been because they were making a mess in her kitchen that she did not want to clean up all the pans and have to put them back on the shelves. The word choice in this poem is just so crafty you just dont know what to really think of it, "battered", "scraped", and "beat" are all negative connotations but are they really that harmful ? To me this poem just leaves you questioning whats right from wrong where do you draw the line ? This poems looking back on a childhood experience from which the boy gives no clear indication of his feelings so we are left to decide how he feels by the wording of the poem. But depending how open minded you are will determine how you really take this poem if you have witnessed or seen a lot of abuse in your life you will automatically think the father is being abusive but if you look at it as being joyful you can pick out words that resemble happiness like "dizzy and "easy", "waltz" and "waltzing" and going back to your childhood for those of you who can remember, how fun was it to rip all the pans off the shelves no matter what the circumstance was!
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.
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