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My Papa's Waltz By Theodore Roethke

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The poem, "My Papa's Waltz" by Theodore Roethke, depict a conflict between a father and a son. The son portray his father as a drunk person, and his relationship with his father wasn't a lovely one. They usually waltz, a smooth dance that require close position. The son usually smell whiskey in his father's breath, which mean that the son was somewhat tall or his father short enough. Though they didn't have a close relationship, Roethke never state that he didn't like his father, whether he stated that he hung on like death. He had an external conflict with his father, and somewhat indifference toward him.

Roethke had an external conflict with his father. His father waltzed him to bed created the connotation of him been whisked to bed. Roethke …show more content…
Roethke look up to his father as his role model. His father probably wanted a better life for him, which mean he had to work hard to reach his father standards. The son never hated his father, despite getting beaten by his father. He stated in the first and fourth stanza of the poem that he hang and cling to his father. ". . . At every step you missed/ My right ear scraped a buckle." His father was too drunk to dance, and he was somewhat to young and short to dance with him. In the first stanza, he stated that he "hung on like death", he didn't want to let go of his father, he was afraid to let go, probably because he would fall. His father probably raised him close to his height. Celie felt somewhat indifference toward her father, but love after he died. After Celie went through this harsh tragedy, she felt nothing, she saw her world closing in, she never felt love by others. After her father, who apparently was her stepdad, died, she felt love by God.

The conflict between Roethke and his father was internally and externally. Though he never stated that he love him, he also never stated that he hate him. His father was drunk and probably that why he whisked his son to bed. The reason the narrator cling to his father was because he wanted his father to stay near him. The dance waltz represents a smooth, progressively close dance. The narrator was close to his father in term of relationship, but far away in term of his father being there when he needed him the

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