Reflective Response - "My Papa's Waltz" - Theodore Roethke. A response paper describing the situation in the poem.

Roethke, Theodore. My Papa's Waltz. Retellings: A Thematic Literature Anthology. Eds. Clarke, M.B. and A.G. Clarke. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2004. 67-68 Roethke's "My Papa's Waltz" initially bestows upon the reader a scene of a father and child passing by the evening's late hours in dance, and then finally rest. Further investigation of the poem's lines provides quite a few alternate meanings that completely differ from the initial portrait that is painted. Taking a look at …

…is this poem. Initially the reader is reading about a dance that is being performed between a father and child. This idea is given by what one today thinks of as a "Waltz". Going back through once more, the reader sees that instead the story promotes a feeling of positive and negative violence. But whether it is positive or negative is up to the reader, as it is never entirely set clear; only hinted upon.