Blog 10 Romping the Beat Tina Radstone

"My Papa's Waltz", by Theodore Roethke, can be interpreted in two different ways. I feel that most people will think that this poem is about a young boy dealing with abuse from his alcoholic father, but this poem can also be interpreted as a young boy having a dance (the Waltz) with his father. Roethke's use of sophisticated word choice, gives the reader the option to interpret the poem in two different ways. In lines 1 and 2, the speaker is talking to his dad and states, "The whiskey on your breath/Could make a small boy dizzy", which can be interpreted that his dad is a heavy drinker, possibly an alcoholic or it can also mean that the speaker's father just had a drink which wouldn't be unheard of considering that some people have a drink after work or before dinner. I can understand how a small boy can become dizzy from his dad's whiskey breath because the smell can be overwhelming and make a small child's head turn, but on the same token that can also make a grown man's head turn as well. The young boy speaker refers to his father's waltz as "not easy" (4) because he "hung on like death" so he won't fall down. Lines 3 and 4 can be interpreted, like most readers do, that the boy is holding tightly onto his drunk father because dancing with him is difficult whereas it can also be interpreted that it isn't easy to waltz with his father because he is just a little boy and he may have to stand on his father's feet and hold his hands or waist in order to dance with him. This can be uneasy due to the fact that his father is responsible for guiding him through the dance.

It can be quite confusing to determine if there is child abuse going on because Roethke uses words like "papa" and "romped" that don't reflect negative connotations. For example the speaker refers to his father as "papa" in the title which connotes that the young boy has a deep love for his father. Whereas it could be different if the young boy is abused by his father, then he might call his father something negative because he may resent him. Another great example is Roethke's clever use of the word "romp", creating a vision that this young boy is horsing around with his father or maybe Roethke means that the boy is aggressively being tossed around.

In line 13, in the last stanza, the speaker states that his father "beat time on my [speaker] head". This is also very clever of the author to do this because usually the word "beat", especially used in this, line gives the reader the idea that the young boy's father physically assaulted him. But it can also be interpreted that figuratively speaking, the father is keeping count of the beats from the music that they are dancing to. So when the speaker says that his father "beat time into his head", perhaps this means that this counting of time is repetitious and the boy learns the musical beats so that he won't dance off beat.

I really liked this poem because I can understand how Roethke's choice of words can be interpreted in a negative sense to make us believe that the young boy is a victim of child abuse from an alcholic father or these choice of words can be positive and make us believe that the poem is of  boy that waltzes with his father even though it seems that the father's dancing is a bit reckless.