My Papa’s Waltz Summary Lines 1-2 The whiskey on your breath Could make a small boy dizzy; Judging by the title, the person addressed in these lines is the small boy's father, and the small boy is our speaker. The father has been drinking whiskey, and not just a little. He's so drunk that even the smell of his breath could make a small boy, like his son, feel a bit woozy. These lines show that the poem will address the father in the second person, referring to him as "you." But we don't think he's actually there with the boy because, after all, we hear nothing back from the man.
“My Papa’s Waltz” The vagueness of “My Papa’s Waltz” makes it difficult to be certain what it is about. Some might argue that the poem is a tale of child abuse, but it is more likely telling the story of a father and son’s horseplay. “The whiskey on your breathe could make a small boy dizzy.” This line doesn’t refer to the father as being stumbling drunk. Many people have an evening drink without getting drunk. “But I hung on you like death.” The boy holds on like his life depends on it because he is having so much fun, not because he is terrified as it may seem.
An example of mood found in the poem is, “The whiskey on your breath / Could make a small boy dizzy;” (Stanza 1 Lines 1-2). The mood given from these lines emphasize the consumption of too much alcohol by the father which can then lead to the interpretation of a brutal parent due to
Hally’s father, an alcoholic, is an antagonist, suffering from an illness and a drinking problem. Another thing that makes Hally want to go ballistic, is when Hallys father is drunk, he will hit his mother. The father’s drinking problem has a very deleterious effect towards the family’s relationship. When his father is feeling bad, he uses alcohol as a palliative. Hally’s father is an onerous man, because he drinks instead of standing up and taking care of his responsibilities.
“My Papa’s Waltz” is a magnificent short poem, with great tone and use of symbolism that also displays more than one example of theme. “My Papa’s Waltz” shows a young boy that either really loves or hates his father, depending on which theme you’re thinking of. As mentioned earlier there is more than just once theme in this poem, which makes this such an interesting poem. One way to look at this poem is where a hardworking father and his son are simply just horse playing, and wrestling around the house late one weekend night. Now this is the side of the story that I see, and the theme for this said would be the importance of family.
Brittney Lindsey Professor Howard English 102 29 Mar 2013 Journal 1 In The poem “My Papa Waltz”, the relationship between the speaker and his father is an abnormal relationship, his father is engaging his child in his drunken activities .Before the child drifts of to sleep, he gets the opportunity to dance with his father .The Father is so drunk that the alcohol on his breath second handily intoxicates his son and makes him dizzy along with the fast paced dancing. Even though this dancing is an annoyance to his mother, and the child is well aware of this. The son continues to hold on to his drunken father in comfort no matter what the circumstances are. I feel like the son is gaining comfort from his father because, he may not receive any attention at all from his father when he is sober and this is his only opportunity to bond with his father even though he is intoxicated with alcohol. In “The Secretary’s Chant” The speaker turns herself into a machine in comparison to the objects that surround her in her everyday scene as a secretary.
Eddies destructive love in act 2 Eddies actions in act 2 of Arthur Miller’s “a view from the bridge” predominantly lead to the destruction of his and Catherine’s relationship. Near the start of the act Eddie returns home “unsteady, drunk” to find Catherine and Rodolpho post sex. Through Millers use of the adjective “unsteady” in the stage directions, the audience are aware that Eddie has had a lot to drink, bringing about the inevitable suspicion that the scene may result into something dramatic, as when things often are when someone is intoxicated. It could also be viewed that Miller is perhaps suggesting that Eddie’s mind is unstable due to his infatuation with his niece becoming increasingly more obsessive. This unstableness is again seen later on in the scene after Eddie kisses Rodolpho in which he expresses two conflicting emotions as “tears are rolling down his face” but he is still laughing “mockingly”.
Him being drunk in this scene allows Shakespeare to develop his character both positively and negatively through an example of malapropism. He mishears a question asked of him by Olivia and ultimately confuses the word ''lethargy'' with ''lechery.'' Although the result of this is comic, it is also quite a crude joke and is an example of 'bad comedy'. This shows that Toby has a rude, inappropriate side to him. The reader second guesses their first opinion of him and sees a selfish side to him, as he is drunk at his cousins funeral with no regards to other peoples feelings.
In Theodore Roethke’s “My Papa’s Waltz”, this is exactly the case. A boy and his father share a very loving memory of dancing a drunken waltz. The boy looks past the fact that his father is drunk because he loves him very much. The imagery that Roethke uses lets the reader transport to the kitchen where the boy and his father are dancing. Roethke’s work plants very vivid images in his reader’s mind that paint a very clear image of the boy and his drunken father.
I think that Jackie feels that Billy now is a shame for the family, because of what he is doing, and he cannot really see why Billy should do something as ridiculous as ballet. Jackie changes his mind about ballet, when he sees Billy dancing in the boxing hall, with one of his friends, and after Billy has told his father, how much he loves ballet. Jackie opens up his eyes, and