The title “My Papa’s Waltz” reveals to us the reader that the event between the father and son is a type dance. This brings to mind why the speaker will write a poem about a dance with his father. This even gives an impression of aristocratic scene with a boy dancing elegantly with his father. However, from the first line of the poem, this impression fades away as it indicates that the father is drunk.
In the first stanza, the speaker illustrates the waltz as a rough combination of movements. This is so due the fact that the father is drunk. This shows the type of quality time the speaker spent with his father. The speaker goes on to say that, the whisky from his father’s breathe was overwhelming a boy of his age, but he continues to dance with his father in spite of the challenge of dancing with his drunk father. He also indicates that even though his father was not easy to follow, the speaker uses the simile “I hang on like death” to portray the fortitude relationship he had with his father by keeping up with him.
The second stanza indicates the playful behavior of the two as they “romped” with such delight that caused pans to fall of the kitchen shelves. On the other hand, the speaker’s mother who might have just placed the pans on the shelves did not find pleasure in their behavior. Although she did not stop the playful boys, she displayed her disapproval by a frown.
In the third stanza, the boy holds his father’s wrist whilst waltzing, but the father clumsily misses steps causing the boy’s ears to encounter painfully with the father’s buckle. The speaker goes ahead and describes the state of his father’s hand saying one knuckle was battered. This description of the father’s hands shows that, the father was a laborer who works with his hands rather than a man who worked in an office.
In the fourth and final stanza, father and son roughly continue with their metaphorical dance; the father beats time on his son’s head with a palm caked hard by dirt. He finally waltz his son to bed but the son clings to his shirt portraying the speaker’s despair of having ending a dance that had provided time of liveliness with his dad.
