Sunday, January 18, 2009
Blog to my Papa's Waltz
After reading My Papa's Waltz, I felt pretty sad. I believe it is talking about a father beating his son. The term "waltz" to me, means that it happens all the time. The setting of the poem takes place in a house. More specifically, the kitchen. The tone he uses in the poem seems as if the child is scared and has to go through a lot of pain, both physically and mentally. The father is a classic case abuser. In the poem the son compares the dancing to being "like death." Nothing in the poem suggests that the boy is enjoying himself in any way. The son describes his mother's expression as being sad. As if she was aware of what was going on, but had no control over doing anything about it. The son is helpless in a situation that no one can get him out of. I think the phrase "beat time" is an indication of him being abused. Though, this poem could not be a metaphor at all and it could be talking about dancing, the words the poet describes are too harsh. At the end of the poem, the author says that the father takes him off to bed still dancing. In this section, I think the son is saying that even when he was about to go to bed, the dad is still beating him. This poem has an underlying meaning other than just a dance between a son and father. I think Roethke's purpose was to bring to light a very serious, and dark subject.
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I don’t agree at all with Brittany about the underlying meaning of this poem. The setting of the poem takes place in a house between a father and his young child. After a long hard day at work the father likes to come home and have a drink to ease the stress work has brought upon him. As they begin to waltz it is hard for the young child to keep up with his fathers rhythm of offbeat dancing. The mother seemed to be agitated as they bounced off of objects throughout the kitchen. The author describes the father’s knuckles as battered and his palms very dirty, which i took as a sign of him being a hard working family man. The child’s ear scrapes their fathers belt buckle as they miss a step and get out of rhythm. When the author refers to “beating time on his head” I don’t belive he is referring to the father abusing the child but the child beating out the rhythm of the dance in their own head. The father takes the child to bed, waltzing the entire way to it. I belive clinging to his shirt means that the child wants to continue to dance and not go off to bed for the night. This was a great poem about a caring an loving father who enjoyed a drink every once and a while. I don’t believe he was abusive but just toughened up his children through a rough form off waltzing.
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