Parent/ Child Relationships in “Papa’s Waltz” and “Those Winter Sunday’s”
... a buckle.” (Line 11-12) Throughout the poem he is trying to make it sound as though his father is sort of a bad dancer and that when he gets thrown around it was just an accident or that he was just being a little rough. “Such waltzing was not easy”. (line 4) The point of the poem is that the child is being abused but he is naive to this situation. He thinks that his father loves him so much that he dances with him every night. “”You beat time on my head/ With a palm caked hard by dirt,/ Then waltzed me off to bed/ Still clinging to your shirt.” (Line 13-16) This is clearly not the healthiest relationship between a parent and their child, but despite all these problems the child still loves his father. “My mother’s countenance/ Could not unfrown itself.” (Line 7-8) Another clear indicator that this is child abuse is the demeanor of the mother in the poem. She is obviously upset about what is happening. In the end what this poem shows is that despite everything his father does to him, the child still loves his father. The poem “Those Winter Sundays”, we see another dysfunctional parent child relationship. While not as bad as the one in the other poem, there is a hint of uneasiness to the interaction between the child and father. “Fearing the chronic angers of that house” (line 9) This line hints to the tension that the child feels from his father. The child obviously does not want to anger his short-tempered father. It shows that not all of what the child is doing is out of respect, some of it was out of fe...