Analyzing the Interpretations of Theodore Roethke’s poem “My Papa’s Waltz”

Option A: The Relevance of Societal Norms in Literary Analysis

After reading the narrative essay in which a college instructor recalls bringing in Theodore Roethke’s poem “My Papa’s Waltz” into her classroom, select ONE of the prompts to respond to.  and make reference to both the narrative essay and your experiences in-class. Option A. “The links between alcoholism and child-abuse are widely documented now, although the subject was nearly unheard-of when this poem was written in 1948. Written at a time when to have a drink was still macho and when the dynamics that lead to child abuse were far from public knowledge, “My Papa’s Waltz” imagines an ideal reader very different from the college students of the late 1990s, who are conditioned to notice even the slightest hints of abuse and alcoholism and to view them as glaring signs of problems. I tried to draw the class’s attention to the historical issues at stake in reading a poem written 50 years ago according to prevailing assumptions and stereotypes. And ultimately, we agreed to disagree on what the more compelling reading of the poem was.” Answer these questions and respond to these prompts: Despite the fact that we read this poem nearly thirty years after the students in the college instructor’s class, nearly all the students in our classroom arrived at the same interpretation - that “My Papa’s Waltz” was about an intoxicated father who was physically aggressive towards his child. Does it surprise you that your collective interpretations of the poem were nearly identical to the students in the essay? Explain why or why not and ensure you take the notion of societal norms into consideration. The instructor places emphasis on being aware of the historical time period (and related societal norms) in which a text was written. After your experience reading this (and other literary works throughout your life), how relevant do you think this is? Explain. Option B. “I wish I could say that in my classroom we talked about how to fit these two readings together by modifying portions of each to reflect the other. In fact, we chose to decide that there were two equally-valid responses rather than working to produce a new, unified interpretation. It nevertheless strikes me as especially satisfying to have my own reading of a poem so radically challenged by my students and to have their reading push me to account for issues I’d never considered within this poem before. At its very best, this is the benefit of reader-response criticism as I see it. Rather than providing a forum for free-for-all interpretation, it allows individual, emotional responses to be channeled into considered readings of a text that take into account the historical positions of both the reader and the writer and enable a valuable complexity of understanding.” Answer these questions and respond to these prompts: The college instructor points out what she believes is the benefit of the reader-response lens. That being said, what do you think are the drawbacks of this approach? Consider that the instructor and students ultimately agreed that there were two equally-valid interpretations of this poem. Do you agree with this or is one interpretation "more valid" than another? Or should the goal be to arrive at a “unified” interpretation? While explaining, reference your understanding of the role that literary lenses (not just the reader-response) play in this.