[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on My Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke
In Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's waltz" the reader finds a horrid experience, the beating of a child by his father, which is told in a way of a romantic and beautiful dance - the waltz. The feeling one get from reading this poem is that the narrator, at least at the time in which the poem is written, does not look at this experience as something bad. He tries to beatify the experience by making it a waltz. He also, by means of images and rhythm, shows the conflict between the readers, or the way any other 'normal' man will look at this experience, and how he sees it, or wants it to be seen ( although he does not show his father as completely innocent).
It can also be looked upon as the Petty Hurst syndrome - meaning having a 'reality' so intense and strong that one feels incapable of any other 'reality', fearing it can and will be worse. The central image in the poem is the metaphor in which the beatings are described as a waltz. The poet is led around the house, dancing - not beaten around. Which is also brought through by the meter, the beat of the waltz, thus the main image is shown through the meter as well, giving the reader more of the feeling of a dance in contrast to the 'secondary images' which are more associated with the rough experience of a beating. Given such parameters the poet installs some sort of relaxation in the reader (maybe even in himself), in order to make the subject - the beating - more readable, and lessening the effect of the drunkenness and the beatings, making his father more human. By this dance metaphor the whole routine of the beating is messaged...............
