My Papa's Waltz- An appreciation

"My Papa's Waltz" is a short and wonderful poem written by Theodore Roethke. In this poem the poet is trying to portray the relation between a father and his son. The poem progresses from the perspective of a child. The deep as well as sweet love of father is ingrained in the waltz performed by him. The child is describing the difficulty in waltzing with his father in the beginning of the poem. The child's father comes home late in the night, drunken. Even his breath was well enough to make a little boy dizzy. But the child kept hanging on to him afraid of the violent and sudden movements in waltzing. The waltzing continued until the pans in the kitchen fell down. His face got scratches from his father's buckles and beatings with the hard and experienced hands of his father. Finally, the child is waltzed off to bed providing a comfortable sleep with his father. It is how a father makes his child aware of the hustle and bustle of the world by holding his hands tightly. After the run in life, we discover the comfort and depth in father's love. The poet has depicted a simple incident in daily life. The way he holds his father and his father holding his hand reveals the invisible mutual interaction between them. In the poem the child doesn't show an interest for waltzing. But, the situation urges him to hang on to his father. In the poem 'Any Woman' by Katharine Tynan, the relevance of a mother is emphasized. A mother is described as the light of love alive, at which the children warn their hands. She's always a knot of love that pulls her children from dangers. While, father's love is always like a hidden treasure. It could be understood only after a long run of hardship. The simple diction used is suitable for a child's thoughts. The rhyming words like breath-death, dizzy-easy, ... and alliterations such as "hand that held.. " contribute to the rhythm of the poem. Hence, altogether the poem, remains as a twinkling star throwing light at father's love.

Amitha Anikuttan, XII B