Domestic Abuse In The Poem 'My Papa's Waltz'

Domestic abuse. This is something we take very seriously nowadays, but in the early- to mid-1900’s, it was not as easily reported. Why you might ask? There were not as many resources for reporting domestic abuse. Therefore, “My Papa’s Waltz” may not be about domestic abuse.

This poem may very well be a recollection of a happy memory. The wording of the poem suggests this. For example, “romped” is a ward used to refer to playful movement, and rather than saying the poets mother was frowning, they chose a gentler way to present this image. The poet could have used many other words, but chose this word in particular. In the second stanza, the poem mentions “we romped until the pans slid from the kitchen shelf.” This gives us an image of them dancing recklessly and crazily. This is not entirely true. The boy and his father could just have not noticed how wild they were dancing, and caused the pans to slide from the …show more content…
After all, beating a child in order to get them to fall asleep faster does not work. Also, if the waltz of this poem is a metaphor for the poets relationship with his father, this could show that it is not easy to “dance” between loving and fearing his father’s power. This statement is important because of how true it is. Loving and fearing your father is more or less a dance. However, the line “could not unfrown itself” in the second stanza has a negative impact on the responder as two negative words are used together. This is an unimportant statement because even in happy poems about memories, negative words may be used.

You and I both now that neither of us would want to be abused. Roethke didn’t want to either. That’s why this poem could possibly represent a dance between loving and fearing his father. Let’s take a step back to realize that not all poems made in the early- to mid-1900’s are not always about domestic