My Papa's Waltz

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Honors English II 4 February 2011 Cruelty at a Father’s Hand In “My Papa’s Waltz” the tones of aggression and abuse are expressed through the metaphor of dance revealing a sons love for his father and his fathers negligence towards his feelings. Aggression is shown from father to son by use of his fists and the overall way he treats his son. Abuse is shown by the father’s mental, as well as, physical beatings to his own flesh and blood of his family. Roethke shows these feelings of his poem through diction as well as imagery by his use of the idea of dance. The author’s diction shows the tones of negligence and physical vituperation because he wants to show the son being beaten. Roethke’s father’s abuse of “whiskey” leads to his own “romping” with his “battered” hands. Alcohol plays a large factor into Roethke’s unnecessary beating, also the father has rough hands leading to the connotation of abuse because of the rough tone of battered hands, which very accurately sums up his personality as a person. Roethke also talks about the roughhousing done, which he thinks is playful with his father is actually very spiteful towards himself. Roethke says he and his father were, “waltzing” and that every step his father missed, because of his father’s alcohol problem he “scraped” his ear on his father’s belt, but this so called dance Roethke speaks of is a metaphor, for his father is really beating him with fists “caked” with sediment. The dance the father and son were doing was very violent and not even a dance for the son was being injured, it is only a dance in the aspect of its control from father to son. The father’s fist was filled with dirt showing how dirty it was, like the dance, dirty though from abuse. The way of which the author uses his diction is very discreet but perceivable because heedlessness and malign are quite

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