Those Winter Sundays Essay

“Those Winter Sundays” In “Those winter Sundays” Robert Hayden as an adult illustrates his understanding of his father’s love towards him as a child. Hayden finally understands that his father was a loving and kind man who never spoke of loving words. The author talks about his father’s sacrifices which were never appreciated. He shows his father’s tenacity by starting the poem with “Sundays too…” (Hayden 17) which shows his father wakes up early every day to work, and even on Sundays, a day known as a day to rest, he gets up early to keep the house warm for his family and take cares of them. Hayden shows his father’s self-sacrifice by using different descriptive words and phrases such as “Blue-black cold” (2), “cracked hands” (3), “ached” (3)

As a child he believed love was expressed in certain, more obvious ways. It is understandable from the poem which the speaker does not have a warm relationship with his father. In actual fact, the speaker is not aware that his father loves him because he is not the kind of man who shows his love by hugging, kissing or telling “I love you" every day. Since Hayden says” When the rooms were warm, he’d call/and slowly I would rise and dress” (Hayden 17) or “who had driven out the cold/and polished my good shoes as well” (Hayden 17), it is clear that the father shows his love by doing something else instead of telling loving words. Today, he feels differently about his father. By saying “No one ever thanked him” (Hayden 17) he shows his regret now. What the speaker realizes today is that love does not always appear in a friendly and warm form. In other hand he understands that his father's love was very strong in action yet quiet in the