Any interpretation of this story is due to the reader's personal emotions and feelings towards his own dad. This story can either be a dance between him and his father, thus bringing them closer together. However, there is a darker side to this poem, on this side it is an unsettling fight between a boy and his drunken father and all the intimacy of the dance does not make an impression on the reader and is overshadowed by the anger that he feels. Theodore Roethke manipulates our emotions in this poem using literary conventions. A waltz is a light and easily accessible dance. In a waltz, a couple swings back and forth in a circle. Our emotions towards this poem seem to follow this same path as we can see both comforting and frightening images in this poem making us go in circles as to whether this poem is about a boy dancing with his father, or about a boy fighting his father. . An example of this "waltz" we have in this poem is in the first stanza where we get the frightening image of "The whiskey on your breath could make a little boy dizzy" (lines 1-2). Then he continues with “we went wild”, thus undermining the serious tone given to us from the first stanza; however, the antics immediately take on seriousness when the pots slide off the kitchen shelves and "the mother's face fails to become discouraged." Another part that can be taken in a positive or negative reading is when the poem says, "The hand that held my wrist was struck on one knuckle." » This could mean that his father was a hardworking man whose hands were weathered from his long hours working as a grafter, or it could mean that his hand was beaten because it is the same hand that is used for the beat. This gives us yet another twist on our emo...... middle of paper ...... e fathers overpowering the son to do what he wants. The skirmish in the last line can be seen as the boy simply trying to survive and grabbing whatever he can to survive this ordeal. He has no way of fighting back since he is so young, because in the first stanza it is not easy for him to hold on. The narrator could focus on many other cases with his father, but he does not because this one hurts him most deeply. He doesn't describe his father, he just focuses on his knuckles and his belt. There is no clear and correct way to analyze the poem and judging which is more correct is in the hands of the reader and not between the writers. If readers looked for different meanings, each side would have a valid reason as to why theirs is correct and the opposing side would have to accept it. The only interesting argument is that it is an interesting and powerful poem..