Speaker
The speaker of this poem is a small boy, or an adult reflecting back upon an event that took place while he was a small boy. He describes feeling overwhelmed and overstimulated, while the poem's childlike rhyme scheme and meter hint at his innocence and youth. Though the poem is highly ambiguous, simultaneously suggesting rambunctious fun and out-of-control abuse, the speaker himself does not express an emotional orientation to the events beyond a general feeling of sensory overload. He is both distressed by the father's actions and increasingly reliant upon the father, clinging to him "like death." The sheer level of movement and sensation occurring around the young speaker, in other words, makes analysis or even emotion difficult: he must simply survive the scene.
The Father
The father is the poem's most ambiguous character and the driving force of its tension. It is possible to read the poem and interpret the father as a playful, loving person having fun with his child. The father is described as having dirty and injured hands, suggesting that he is hardworking, but he nevertheless makes time to play with his child and even carries him off to bed. At the same time, the poem consistently hints that the father's actions are abusive. His dirty hands, injuries, and whiskey-scented breath hint that he is an alcoholic and that he is both the subject and the perpetrator of violence. His "waltz," including the way he keeps time against the child's head and clutches his wrist, appears rough and hurtful in this interpretation.
The Mother
The mother appears only once in the poem, a figure who watches the scene between the father and son with a frown on her face. This frown's meaning changes, according to one's interpretation of the father. If the father is read as a kindly, energetic figure, then the mother's frown appears mild and unserious. In this reading, the mother is fulfilling a kind of cautious, protective maternal role beside the father's playful masculinity. On the other hand, if the father is interpreted as an abusive figure, then the mother's frown emerges as an expression of fear and helplessness, subverting the aforementioned maternal role.
