Those Winter Sundays by Robert Hayden tells about a child’s indifferent relationship with his father. The poem explains all of the things the father did for his child without being asked or thanked. It then jumps to the child’s point of view and tells what they say as a child as to what they see now as an adult looking back. The child, who is now grown, shows signs of regret as he looks back at how he treated his father, who sounds to have passed away. Finally, in the final lines the speaker realizes that the father’s relationship was filled with love.
In the beginning two sentences of the poem, the speaker talks about his father getting up early on Sundays too, the word too should be emphasized because it shows that this means the father gets up early every single day, even Sunday. This is odd because Sunday to most people, is the one day a week designated to resting and going to church. The father in the poem does not just wake up early; he wakes up while it is still dark and cold out, before sunrise. In addition, the father dresses in the dark. By doing this, it is assumed that he wishes to allow the others to sleep in and not disturb them.
Then in lines three to five the speaker talks about his father’s hands, which are worn, tired and sore from working. However, the way the hands are described it shows that the father doesn’t just work a simple job but rather a hard physical labor job that makes him earn his paycheck in order to provide for his family. This doesn’t stop the father, he still finds the drive to get out of bed and allow the other members to sleep in while he lights a fire and allows the house to become warm and comfortable. Unfortunately, none of the family members seem to notice that he does this deed for t...
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... to strike fear into the child, while all the love and things that his father did for him only resulted in indifference.
Finally, in lines thirteen and fourteen, it is where we see the remorse and regret as the speaker realizes everything that the father did for him. He realizes that he took it all for granted and not once thanked his father. It is also in these lines that we get the feeling that the father has passed. You can hear the speaker’s distress as the words “what did I know” repeat in the last two lines of the poem. The speaker realizes the amount of time and love and devotion the father put into his family. The speaker talks of not recognizing or understanding love in its form of harsh or disciplined. He didn’t understand his father’s fulfilled duty as a loving and caring parent to support his family, until the role was empty and his father had passed.
In the book “The Boys of Winter” by Wayne Coffey, shows the struggle of picking the twenty men to go to Lake Placid to play in the 1980 Olympics and compete for the gold medal. Throughout this book Wayne Coffey talks about three many points. The draft and training, the importance of the semi-final game, and the celebration of the gold medal by the support the team got when they got home.
“Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden, “My Father as a Guitar” by Martin Espada, and “Digging” by Seamus Heaney are three poems that look into the past of the authors and dig up memories of the authors fathers. The poems contain similar conflicts, settings, and themes that are essential in helping the reader understand the heartfelt feelings the authors have for their fathers. With the authors of the three poems all living the gust of their life in the 1900’s, their biographical will be similar and easier to connect with each other.
"Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden is a poem about a how the author is recalling how his father would wake up early on Sundays, a day which is usually a reserved as a day of rest by many, to fix a fire for his family. The mood of this poem is a bit sad. It portrays a father, who deeply cares for his family but doesn't seem to show it by emotions, words, or touching. It also describes a home that isn't very warm in feelings as well as the title" Those Winter Sundays" The author describes the father as being a hard worker, in the line "…with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday…", but still even on Sundays--the day of rest, the father works at home to make sure the house is warm for his family. The "blueblack cold described in the poem is now warmed by a father's love. This poem describes the author reminiscing what did not seem obvious at the time, the great love of his father, and the author's regretting to thank his father for all that he did.
The poem “Those Winter Sundays” displays a past relationship between a child and his father. Hayden makes use of past tense phrases such as “I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking” (6) to show the readers that the child is remembering certain events that took place in the past. Although the child’s father did not openly express his love towards him when he was growing up, the child now feels a great amount of guilt for never thanking his father for all the things he actually did for him and his family. This poem proves that love can come in more than one form, and it is not always a completely obvious act.
The poem is written in the father’s point of view; this gives insight of the father’s character and
The lack of verbal communication between his father and himself can be seen in his poem "Those Winter Sundays." The overall impression of the poem is that love can be communicated in other ways than through words; it can be communicated through everyday, mundane actions. For example, in the poem, the father awakens on "Sundays too" to warm the house with a fire and polish his sons shoes. There is a sense of coldness in the beginning of the poem through the lines:
His ungratefulness as a child has now emerged on him, leaving the speaker ashamed of taking his father’s hard work for granted. In this poem he writes, “…fearing the chronic angers of that house//Speaking indifferently to him/who had driven out the cold…” (Hayden, 17). When he quotes “fearing chronic angers”, the speaker refers to his view of life as a child, and how he interpreted his father’s agony and self-sacrifice as anger towards him. With an apathetic and cold attitude that accompanied his youth, he did not recognize the love that his father had for him. Hayden also writes, “What did I know, What did I know…” (Hayden 17). Repeating this rhetorical question twice it is obvious that the speaker, now as an adult, feels deep remorse over the way he had treated his father. With a matured mind, Hayden came to the realization that love comes in all shapes and forms, and his father’s love was shown through his selfless
Family bonds are very important which can determine the ability for a family to get along. They can be between a mother and son, a father and son, or even a whole entire family itself. To some people anything can happen between them and their family relationship and they will get over it, but to others they may hold resentment. Throughout the poems Those Winter Sundays, My Papa’s Waltz, and The Ballad of Birmingham family bonds are tested greatly. In Those Winter Sundays the relationship being shown is between the father and son, with the way the son treats his father. My Papa’s Waltz shows the relationship between a father and son as well, but the son is being beaten by his father. In The Ballad of Birmingham the relationship shown is between
A Cold Day in Paradise is a book that was written by Steve Hamilton and takes place in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The name of the book is very significant to the meaning of the book. The cold day represents the metal bullet that is in Alex McKnight’s chest and on cold nights, it is a reminder of a traumatic event that took place. While Paradise is the place that he lives and where the last death took place and it was also on a cold windy night.
It is with the “cold splintering, breaking” coldness that only makes the father’s job harder. Except, the worry and tiredness of his father makes him angry in the household. But this also includes the father getting angry because his children were not helping out. “Slowly I would rise and dress,” for the time his father offers to be with his children. Like an illness, “the chronic angers of that house” help keep the brother outside working with his father. With the help the speaker is getting help to his father, the father is growing to the understanding that his son is grateful of his hard
While most of us think back to memories of our childhood and our relationships with our parents, we all have what he would call defining moments in our views of motherhood or fatherhood. It is clearly evident that both Theodore Roethke and Robert Hayden have much to say about the roles of fathers in their two poems as well. While the relationships with their fathers differ somewhat, both men are thinking back to a defining moment in their childhood and remembering it with a poem. "My Papa's Waltz" and "Those Winter Sundays" both give the reader a snapshot view of one defining moment in their childhood, and these moments speak about the way these children view their fathers. Told now years later, they understand even more about these moments.
“Those Winter Sundays” had a sad and sorrowful tone to it as compared with “Begotten” which has a more pleasant and upbeat tone. One of the reasons why I chose to look at poems in the family album was because of how diverse every poem was going to be. Just like in real life, everyone has a different life story due to their families. Family life is an important part of life and I liked how the speaker of the poem was able to reflect back on his childhood after had grown up. Both of these poems were about child-father relationship, but family all together. It is easy to take your parents for granite, but when you grow up you start to realize how grateful you are for all they have done for you. Just because these two poems had two different tones did not make one better than the other, they were both equally powerful in their
“Those Winter Sundays” and “My Father’s Hats” both involve a Son’s relationship with his father. They are both written from old memories. Both of the speakers wish that they had the chance to speak, touch, and hear their father again. The theme of both poems are the appreciation of their fathers. Neither of the two poems has a rhyme scheme. Both of the poems have religious references. The children did not understand the selfless acts their fathers committed until they are
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is a novel following the rebellious life of twenty-two year old Arthur Seaton. Arthur spends his weekdays working at a bicycle factory and relaxes on weekends with plenty of drinks while in the company of various lady friends. The novel was written by Alan Sillitoe who came to be known as one of the “angry young men.” This group of writers was a dominant literary force during the 1950s and was immensely popular due to their accurate portrayal of postwar Britain and the working class. The angry young men produced a number of books (amongst other things) expressing their contempt with the class system, postwar welfare state and the lack of class change post war, the disdain of these issues are very prominent throughout Sillitoe’s novel.
The phrasing of this poem can be analyzed on many levels. Holistically, the poem moves the father through three types of emotions. More specifically, the first lines of the poem depict the father s deep sadness toward the death of his son. The line Farewell, thou child of my right hand, and joy creates a mental picture in my mind (Line 1). I see the father standing over the coffin in his blackest of outfits with sunglasses shading his eyes from the sun because even the sun is too bright for his day of mourning. The most beautiful scarlet rose from his garden is gripped tightly in his right hand as tears cascade down his face and strike the earth with a splash that echoes like a scream in a cave, piercing the ears of those gathered there to mourn the death of his son.