An explication of “My Papa’s Waltz”

An interpretation of “My Papa’s Waltz” should take into account the complexity of the speaker’s feelings that are brought about by the father’s waltz. A dance should bring two people closer together. The dance in this poem acts that way, yet the darker side of this waltz, which is a powerfully unsettling emotion under the surface of the poem, dominates the mood, and the love and intimacy of the dance but does not make a strong impression on the reader. Theodore Roethke manipulates the reader’s emotional response to the poem through a number of literary conventions, some of which play on the conventions of a waltz.
Waltzes are not difficult dances. They are set to light-hearted music. Couples sway back and forth, as they go round and round in a dance. The reader’s emotions and sympathies do the same in the poem. The speaker carefully orders his images to juxtapose startling images with comforting images. In the first stanza, for instance, the speaker begins w...