- The poem describes a father drunkenly waltzing around the kitchen with his young son. Though clumsy, the boy hangs on tightly. - The father has rough, battered hands from physical work. As they dance, the son's ear scrapes against the father's belt buckle. - The mother watches disapprovingly as pans fall from the shelves during their rowdy waltz. In the end, the father dances the tired boy off to bed, though the boy clings to his father's shirt, suggesting both fear and love for his father.

1. My Papa’s
Waltz
(Theodore Roethke)
By :
Asma Diyana
Nur Maizatul

2. SUMMARY
• Daddy's had a little too much whiskey, and now he's waltzing
around the kitchen with his son. Their waltz is pretty clumsy – the
pans are sliding from the shelf, and mom's not too happy about
that.
• The father must be a guy who works with his hands, because his
knuckles are rough, and he deals with a lot of dirt.
• This dance may not be all fun and games for the boy – he keeps
scraping his ear on his dad's belt buckle, ouch! And his dad is
keeping time, perhaps not so gently, on the boy's head.
• In the end, the father dances the boy off to bed.

3. STANZA 1
Lines 1-2
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
• Judging by the title, the person addressed in these lines is the small boy's
father, and the small boy is our speaker.
• The father has been drinking whiskey, and not just a little. He's so drunk that
even the smell of his breath could make a small boy, like his son, feel a bit
woozy.
• These lines show that the poem will address the father in the second person,
referring to him as "you." But we don't think he's actually there with the boy
because, after all, we hear nothing back from the man. Instead, his son is
probably just thinking about talking to him.

4. Line 3
But I hung on like death:
• This line indicates that the whiskey is indeed making our
speaker quite dizzy, because he has to hang on like death,
perhaps the one thing that hangs on to us all.
• Using the word "death" so early in the poem clues the reader
in that this poem isn't just a happy memory – it's also
haunted.
• Saying that the boy hung on "like" death is an example of a
simile.

5. Line 4
Such waltzing was not easy.
• This line wraps up the first stanza. In what could be a
happy moment, father and son dancing, we see that
it's kind of tricky for the son to hold on to his drunken
father.
• Also, if the waltz of this poem is a metaphor for their
father-son relationship, this could show that it's not
easy to dance between loving and fearing his father's
power.

6. STANZA 2Lines 5-6
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
• This is not a quiet, stately waltz, but a romp! Quite the hoot! This pair is making so much
commotion that the pans are falling off the shelf, probably providing quite a chaotic soundtrack.
• These lines also give us a setting, in the kitchen. A lot of family life is spent in the kitchen –
cooking, eating, and, as we can now see, waltzing.
Lines 7-8
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
• Now the mother enters the picture, and she's pretty unhappy that her husband and her son are
"romping." Maybe because they're making a mess of the kitchen.
• "Countenance" means face, or expression. Saying that her face couldn't unfrown itself is just
another way to say that she couldn't stop frowning. It could also mean that her face is physically
frowning, but inside she's smiling.
• So, either she's just playing a role of disapproval when she really wants to chuckle, or she's
actually upset about what's going on.
• Some people think that she couldn't be really upset, because she doesn't speak up to stop the
waltz. But this could mean something else: she might not speak up because she's too scared of her
drunken husband. Speaking up might not help.

7. STANZA 3
Lines 9-10
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
• The father is grasping the son's wrist. Notice that this is different from the
way the father's referred to in the rest of the poem; his hand is referred to
as "the" hand, not "your" hand.
• The hand is battered, but only on one knuckle. We don't quite know what
"battered" means. It could just be cracked and dry from a long hard day of
work, but then wouldn't every knuckle be battered? Maybe the father
whacked it on something – perhaps he punched something, maybe he was
carelessly drunk, or maybe he scraped it at work. We don't know.

8. Lines 11-12
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
• We get a little more about how this father-son relationship
could be a little violent. Every time the father misses a step in
his waltz, the son's ear scrapes against his belt buckle. The
father seems to be gallivanting along, totally unaware that he's
scratching his little boy as he goes.
• A belt buckle also has a violent connotation, because in the past
it was common for fathers to use their belts to beat their
children (this still happens sometimes today).
• We also see that this boy is very small – it seems like he's only as
tall as his father's belt.

9. STANZA 4
Lines 13-14
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
• We see more about the father's roughness in these lines. He "beat"
time, which refers to a musical beat here, but still reminds us of
physical assault.
• We don't know what the speaker's father did for a living, but we
know that Roethke's father owned a greenhouse. So, it makes sense
that the speaker in one of his poems would have a father with very
dirty palms.
• This father, with battered knuckles and rough palms, seems very
physical and tough. Yet he's dancing around the kitchen with his
son.

10. Lines 15-16
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
• Our dance is winding down now. The boy is being waltzed off to
bed, which makes us think that this whole dance may have just
been a trick to get the boy into bed (and a little tuckered out first).
• The boy doesn't seem to want to go to bed, because he's still
clinging to his father's shirt.
• Now this image seems sweet, but then we think back to the first
stanza, where the speaker said he hung on like death. So, at the end
of the poem, both the boy and death still cling to the father.
• Also, if this dance wasn't so easy, and got the boy a little scraped
up, the boy must really love his father to want to keep clinging to
him.