Many people look back on memories with a pleasant slant. A backpacker mau love to go to the mountains, but every time that person ventures out he encounters a storm. the weather is not always conducive to the backpacker and can cuase him great discomfort at the time. However, when the hiker returns to his normal rountine again he usually forgets about the bad experience so that he can continue to reminiscence about the good times in the mountains and happily plan his next adventure. Similarly, Theodore Roethke's My Papas Waltz is a poem about a man who tries to make a horrible event into something much ore pleasant to remember back on . the child in the poem realizes tht childhood was full of scary nights i9n which he sometim es feared for his life. Through a few short versus and the use of vivid imargery Roethke will allow a person to anterpret for himself or herself if this is a case of abuse or a loving memory. The speaker in this poem begin s by commenting on how lmuch his father drinks. roethke used the sense of smell effectively, in his poelm when he described the whiskey on you breath. The negative image of remembering someofne who presents themselves with the stench of alcohol about them. The amount was so great that it could make a small boy dizzy. As they continue to waltz, the boy hung on like death. The word death brings out a very negative imagery and may cause readers to subconsciously decide that the child is in an abusive dangerous situation. The second stanza leads us to the sense of hearing when Roethke writes, romped until the pans slid from the shelf. The reader can visualize the action of romping, which means to play in a boisterious or noisy manmner. The sound of pans sliding from the shelf and clanging to the floor are not everyday sounds. Their boisteriously entertaining play is panted vividly in our minds over sounds of helpless laughter or tears as they interact together. the poem My opa...
