"My Papa's Waltz" mentions a little boy being carried around the house by his father. The author, Theodore Roethke incorporates many couplets throughout the poem. (Example: "The whiskey on your breath" and "But I hung on like death") After the first two stanzas, the author went from one couplet to two in the second two stanzas. This caused the last two stanzas to contain rhyming words at the end of each line. Another attribute in this poem was the repetition of the word "waltz". It was only used twice, but I consider it significant because it relates to the title. These attributes along with a slight, noticeable rhythm made this poem easy to read and understand.
I think the author was trying to show that the boy was enjoying his father carrying him around. The description causes me to wonder if the boy had been scared and his father had come to comfort him. Another possible situation could be that his father was bringing him to bed. These assumptions mainly come from the phrase: "Then waltzed me off to bed". Much of this poem also seems negative. The author used the words or phrases: "death", "dizzy","not easy", "battered", "missed" and "clinging". This is more evidence towards my interpretation that the boy had been scared because he notices things during this time period in a negative way.
The author used some interesting techniques for his writing! Great analysis Jared.
ReplyDeleteJared, good point on the rhythm. This will move us into our discussion of meter this week. You also use tone to move toward an overall interpretation. What do you make of the first line, or the one that refers to the mother? I appreciate your attention to rhyme. A couplet is two rhyming lines together, so it doesn't apply here - instead we'd say the poem has an abab/cdcd rhyme scheme.
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