FINAL response on "My Papa's Waltz'

Recently we read “My Papa’s Waltz”. I read this poem last year, and immediately remembered the tranquil and sad feeling I got the first few times I read it. This time around, though I still kept in mind what I thought about the poem last year, I made new connections that in some ways reflects what is going on in my life now. Interesting how poems can do that, huh? Anyway, last year I associated the poem pretty immediately with heavy drinking and abuse. T hough I still think the child is getting hurt and the father is at least tipsy, I am more open to the emotional and beautiful side of the poem. The little boy clings onto his fathers shirt through romping and stumbling around. Even with all the ‘drama’ of having a tipsy father, the little boy may see his drunken stumbling as playing, and his pushes and light hits as dance directions. The son may be getting hurt, but the little boy calls this a waltz because it is hard for people to see the bad in their parents.

I’ll start with backing up to the father being tipsy/drunk. The little boy says that there is “whiskey on your [his father’s] breath to make a small boy dizzy,” (line 2) possibly the small boy being himself. Though having whiskey on your breath doesn’t automatically make you drunk, when there is enough to “make a small boy dizzy,” yes not uncomfortable but DIZZY, something is up. Also, “every step you miss” (line 11) indicates that the father may not be completely aware of his surroundings. Another thing that leads to the father being at least tipsy is that the father is dirty with a “palm caked hard by dirt,” (line 14). Having a battered knuckle could mean that either the father is a construction worker as Charlie suggested in class, or that the dirt is from being out late, roaming the streets in a drunken frenzy, getting into some messy tussles here and there.

Another belief I have is that, whether purposely or not, the father is hurting the son. “My right right ear scraped a buckle” (line 12) sounds pretty harsh, and “you beat time on my head” (line 13) could mean a number of things, from hurting the boy physically to threats of memories and the future. Also, people say that since the mother is pretty much just being a bystander, the father isn’t drunk and isn’t hurting his son. If the father was hurting his son, the mother would do something, right? Well, I hate to break it to people, but not everyone is brave. What if the ‘papa’ drinks a lot, and in the past has hit the mother, too? From mother’s we expect there to be a lot of protection for their children, especially growing up in gentle Park Slope. What about protecting yourself? This poem, to me, seems as if it took place at least a few decades ago, when it was more common for mother’s and father’s to be more ‘disciplinarian’ toward their children, and men to be more hostile with women. The mother may be scared for her own self, and may not want to make the scene worse by cutting in.

I also believe that the waltz is actually the father staggering around while his son clings to him. “Romping” (line 5) means acting in a rough and noisy (boisterous) way, which could show up if the son is clinging on, and the father is angry and wants him off. The boy also says “BUT I hung on like DEATH,” (line 3). The fact that the son used the word ‘death’ rather than something like ‘I hung on tight’ shows that possibly he is in a situation not so far from what brings death, or what emotions come with death. Maybe the boy doesn’t exactly know what being drunk is, but he is scared of his papa staggering and trying to push him away.

Adding on to my previous point, usually when people say ‘but’, they are trying to justify or explain something. In the poem’s context, what is being explained or justified is that the whiskey on the father’s breath could make a small boy dizzy. The thing about this poem that I truly find so beautiful and true is that the little boy clearly loves his father. Whether actually dancing or getting abused, and being with a drunk or just tipsy father, the little boy wants to dance and play with him. He defends the whiskey on the breath, and clings on to him for dear life, whether for support or simply wanting love when ‘waltzing’ and being sent to bed. As I mentioned, for us (especially little boys, but even me sometimes), we look up to our parents, and so we find it hard to fault them. No matter what, (hopefully), we love our parents even if they ground us, take away the computer, etc. We all as teenagers have those times of ‘No one understands me!’ or ‘WHATEVER MOM!’ and then the occasional ‘I hate you!’, but how can we truly hate the people that would give up so much for us? The son may be in risk of getting seriously hurt by his drunk dad, but instead of thinking of that, he thinks his father’s staggers and pushes are a dance or waltz of a kind. The waltz of a son and his father.