Essay 4

COMMENT:
This piece will surprise people the most because I am not usually a fan of poetry. I really enjoyed this poem because, as I have mentioned in my discussion, it reminded of my father. My father has been gone twenty-one years in May and I can still remember him playing with me perhaps rougher than was usual for a girl. I loved every minute of it though. Those are some of my favorite memories.



The End of the Day
The poem “My Papa’s Waltz” written by Theodore Roethke tells the story of a man’s recollection of time spent in his childhood with his father. The poem explains the affectionate roughhousing between a father and a son as a hardworking father spends a small amount of quality time with his son at the end of a day of work. The narrative poem was written years after the event takes place as a note or letter to his father looking back on his favorite childhood memories.
The “waltz” referred to in the title of the poem was a metaphor for the roughhousing that the father and son engaged in at the end of the day. The roughhousing was not an isolated event but was most likely an event that happened many times in his childhood. Perhaps, this was a nighttime ritual of the author, as a boy, and his father. The father would come home from a hard day of work just in time for supper, a drink of whiskey and a few minutes of quality time with his son before putting him to bed. The roughhousing was a way of connecting with his son at the end of a long day.
The first stanza tells of the young boy’s difficulties keeping up with his father’s roughhousing especially considering the smell of alcohol. The boy hopes that by hanging “on like death” (line 3), he could somehow manage to keep up. The author’s use of the word death here isn’t meant to convey the end of life but instead to mean something that never ends. This leads the reader to believe this activity was something the boy wanted to happen. It was important for him to be able to keep up with the father. The father smells of whiskey which “could make a small boy dizzy” (line 2) indicating his father has probably just drank the whiskey which would be a reason for the smell to be so strong.
In the second stanza, the roughhousing continues until the chaos makes the pots slide from the shelves in the kitchen. They are having such a good time together. The word choice of “romped” (line 5) indicates they were both enjoying themselves. However, the mother expresses her unhappiness at the disorder the pair was likely creating with her “countenance / (that) Could not unfrown itself” (lines 7-8). All this is happening just before bedtime, so she likely did not like the father getting the small boy wound up with the playing and roughhousing. It didn’t upset her enough, though, to make the two of them stop. She probably knew how important this small amount of quality time was to the son and the father.
In the third stanza, the “waltz” continues as the father holds the boy’s wrist and the father clumsily missing steps causes the boy’s ear to be scratched by the father’s belt buckle. The boy seems to still be struggling to be in control while playing with his father. This stanza gives the reader a glance at the type of man the father was. The author describes one of the father’s hands as being “battered on one knuckle” (line 10) suggesting he was a blue-collar employee and not a white-collar office worker. Mostly likely he was a rough man who would not be likely to cuddle his son but instead chose to show his affection through the roughhousing.
The fourth stanza goes on to describe the palm of his father’s hand as being “caked hard by dirt” (line 14) again suggesting his father was engaged in some sort of physical labor. The beating of the top of the little boy’s head is the beginning of the father’s attempt to transition the boy from playtime to bedtime. The roughhousing is winding down but the small boy wants to continue. He doesn’t want this precious and short time at the end of the day with his father to ever end. Then the father takes the little boy off to bed while he is still “clinging to (the father’s) shirt” (line 16) not wanting the fun with his father to end. Clinging furthers the author’s need to explain to the reader that the boy is exactly where he wants to be; in the arms of his father at the end of the day.
Roethke seems to look back on this part of his childhood with wonderful memories having had a caring father who took time at the end of the day to show his son how important he was. The poem reminds parents to make time for our children no matter how long our day has been. Our children will be young only once and for a short time, so we must enjoy them.


Work Cited
Roethke, Theodore. “My Papa’s Waltz.” Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. 8th ed. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2007. 856-857.