Families Values in Knoxville, Tennessee, Those Winter Sundays, and Two Kinds

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Recommended: "those winter sundays" by robert hayden essay

Family. What do you think of when you hear that

word? Some people think of relatives or the people

that they live with. Maybe a stepfather, stepmother,

brothers, or sisters. To me, family is love,

devotion, and caring. People of a family want to be

together and love to do things for each other, such as

do the dishes or wash the car for them. The poems

that most represent my family values are “Knoxville,

Tennessee” by Nikki Giovanni and “Those Winter

Sundays” by Robert Hayden. The one that does not

represent my family as much as the others is “Two

Kinds” by Amy Tan.

I love the poem “Knoxville, Tennessee” by Nikki

Giovanni. It gives me a sense of people wanting to be

together, family, wanting to be together. Giovanni

wrote this poem so that it is told through a child

(under the age of ten). The child’s world is made up

of his or her family. He or she is mostly with the

family “at the church picnic” (Giovanni 50, line 12)

or “at the church / homecoming” (Giovanni 50,

lines17-18). The child goes places with the family

and is with them all of the time. He or she has not

reached the teenage stage of rebellion and does not

mind being with his or her parents. That is why I

like this poem. It shows love for family through the

uncontaminated eyes of a child.

“Those Winter Sundays” represents family devotion to

me. The father in the poem is so devoted to his

family that he gets “up early / and put his clothes on

in the blueback cold” (Hayden 51, lines 1-2) to warm

the house for them. He does not care about anything

except driving the cold away for his family. That is

the kind of thing that is done out of true, deep,

unconditional love. Families stick together and

support each other, even if one is not so kind, like

the teenager who fears “the chronic angers of the

house” (Hayden 51, line 9). Families forgive, forget,

and keep loving each other.

“Two Kinds” is a story that does not represent my

idea of family. The young daughter (Tan) does not

obey her mother and continually disappoints her. Her

mother wants her to learn piano and believes that she

has talent, but Tan does not agree. “Unlike my

mother, I did not believe that I could be anything.

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