The Ambiguity of "my Papa's Waltz"

The Ambiguity of "My Papa's Waltz"

        In Theodore Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz," the narrator seems to be an adult who is recalling and reacting to an incident from his childhood.  Both the diction of the poem (words like "waltzing" and "countenance") and the use of the past tense suggest that the poem is an adult recollection.  Some readers argue that the poem is his bitter recollection of abuse while others argue that it is his nostalgic remembrance of a boisterous father.  I believe, however, that the narrator is a man who, through his recollection of a childhood incident, is still trying to sort out his feelings about his father  The narrator is a man who has not fully come to terms with his feelings about a father who was apparently both loving and violent.

        The title of the poem itself as well as references to waltzing in the poem suggest happiness, joviality.  The word "romped" strongly implies playfulness and childhood boisterousness.  The scene with the mother frowning while the father and son dance through the kitchen can easily be seen as the boyish conspiracy (both father and son) against the rules of a calm, more restrained mother.  The father seems to be an outdoor worker (with dirty and battered hands the everyday result of his occupation) who has been celebrating the end of day's work with a drink and with a romp with his son.

        On the other hand, however, the phrase "hung on like death" and the choice of such words as "battered," "scraped," and "beat" force the reader to acknowledge overtones of fear and violence and to see them as a counterbalance to romping and waltzing.  These opposing positive and negative images work together to create an ambiguity that pervades the poem.

        The last two lines of the poem seem to fully establish the ambiguity of the narrator's feelings about his father.  The father "waltzed" him off to bed, a phrase that seems to recapture the mood suggested by the title, but that is counteracted by the image of the boy "Still clinging to your [the father's] shirt."  He could be clinging out of love or out of fear.  After carefully counterbalancing positive and negative images/words throughout the poem, Roethke in this final line effectively captures the ambiguity of the narrator who after many years remembers with both love and resentment a father whose roughness and violence still haunt him.