New Criticism attracts many readers to its methodologies by prompting them with clearly defined steps to follow in order to criticize any literary work. He rejects the use of any outside sources, stating that the only way to truly analyze a poem effectively is to focus solely on the words of the poem. For this interpretation I followed all the necessary steps in order to properly analyze the poem. I reached consensus on both the tension and how to resolve it. The diction of a poem plays a fundamental role in analyzing a poem, since the text is all one needs to discover its meaning. My Father's Waltz is a fairly short poem, but the words have a major impact. The word “whiskey” (line 1) implies that the father is a drunkard, which makes the boy “dizzy” (line 2) or in other words, it makes him sick. The poem claims that the boy is small, which makes him fragile, which plays into the following lines of the poem. “Dead” (line 3) has a negative connotation, along with “beaten” (line 10), “beaten” (line 13), and “hard” (line 14). “Romped” (Line 5) has a positive denotation suggesting harmless brutality. The word "face" (line 7) does not flow in the stanza, sounding harsh and negative, alongside the mother's harsh disapproval. “Hung” (line 3) is in the past tense, so the poem is a reflection of an earlier time. “Waltzed” (line 15) takes on a different meaning beyond dancing, making it synonymous with taking someone somewhere. Understanding the words of a poem was the first step to analyzing my father's waltz using this methodology. Not only words, but also figures of speech and other similar elements are important in analyzing the poem. Alliteration is seen throughout the poem, such as in lines one through four and seven through eight. The alliteration of one to four (whiskey, waltz, was) flows well, contrasting with the negativity of the first stanza, while seven to eight (face, could) sounds unpleasant to the ear, emphasizing the disapproval of the mother. The image of the father hitting the child's head with his palm seems harmful, as does the image of the father's bruised hands holding the child's wrists. It depicts the father as having ultimate power over the child, instead of holding his hands he grabs his wrists..