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The Tone of My Papa's Waltz - Online Term Paper

The Tone of My Papa's Waltz

My Papa's Waltz, one of Theodore Roethke's poems, has sparked off an intense debate on the tone and theme of it. It is an account of a relationship between son and father. Some claim that this poem suggests an abusive environment while the idea that it is an appreciative account of the love and joyfulness between the characters is still held by some others. Domestic relation is so complex that it is impossible to measure it according to one particular respect. So is the son-and-father relationship in this poem. The poem, as it seems to me, expresses the boy's complex emotions toward his father -- a mixture of love and fear, leading to a work rich in ambivalence.
In stanza one, the word ...

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wrist tightly, but the boy still cling to his father¡¯s shirt when he put him on bed, too. It is notorious that dancing Waltz need not to hold each other so tightly that makes the boy hard to breathe which may cause asphyxia. If the boy felt hard to breathe, why doesn't he just unclasp his father? One one hand, he is afraid of being hurt if his father is annoyed. On the other hand, he enjoys the closeness between them. The comparison indicates that the authority of the father can¡¯t be resisted and that the child also doesn¡¯t want to resist his father.
The last but one line "Then waltz me off to bed" suggests that it's late and time for bed. As is true in our childhood, children are often reluctant to go to sleep at bedtime. It is likely that the boy not only delighted by his father's concern, but by the postponement of going to bed. However, as we can see from the third stanza: "The hand that held my wrist / Was battered on one knuckle; At every step you missed / My right ...

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The Tone of My Papa's Waltz. (2011, June 9). Retrieved January 30, 2025, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/The-Tone-of-My-Papas-Waltz/99647

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 6/9/2011 10:31:44 AM
Submitted By: vivikiki
Category: Poetry & Poets
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 648
Pages: 3

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