Monday, February 11, 2013

My Papa's Waltz: New Critical Reading



Undying love of Son to his Father:“My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke 
            While approaching the poem entitled “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke through New Critical reading, persona recollects his childhood memories which were spent with his father. This is the precise depiction of undying love of a son towards his father. Now, persona is in his adulthood and gets into the flashback to recollect all those memories.
            Although dictions of Roethke may create the possibility of literal interpretation including the theme of domestic violence, brutality of father and other; but poem particularly portrays the playful or cheerful waltzing between a son and father. Waltz is a type of dance between two people as partners moving round and round. So, Waltz stands for the several circles of live between a son and father. A young boy (son) seems to be learning those steps which give us the clear image of a boy who is learning to live.
            Roethke begins his first stanza with rhyming like breathe, death and dizzy, easy.
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.