“My Pappa’s Waltz”—what do you think it’s about?
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother’s countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
I’ve heard that this poem is about a hard-working, alcoholic father who just gets home and decides to waltz around the house with his young son. However, I’ve also read that it’s about an abusive relationship is which the son is confused about what his father his doing to him and yet still loves him all the same.
What do you think?
Comments(5)
i just read that for english class
i think it is just a tradition
I think its about an abusive parent. But I’m and angry poet, so I tend to see the darker side.
You could get out of it that the dad is abusive because of the scrapes the little boy gets that the dad is oblivious to. His mother not smiling at all is another clue that he is abusive, if this type of thing did not happen often she would have thought it was cute. It also seems like he went right from work to the bar and made it home after dinner was already over, another sign of alcoholism. This could be read by the hand still caked by dirt, if he had been there for dinner he would have washed his hands.
it is often worth checking whether a question has been asked before; especially if it is about so commonly used a poem.
The dad is abusive to his son and try to the kids with him was when he comes home drunk to the kids with him was when he comes home drunk to the kids with him was.