Love is not just a feeling, but a commitment and sacrifice as well. In “Those Winter Sundays”, author Robert Hayden tells the story of a hardworking father waking up in the cold to kindle a fire, while his indolent son ungratefully slumps from his warm bed. The relationship between these two show that love can be shown in a variety of ways, but the diction and figurative language used by Hayden convey that sacrifice is the most subtle approach. Hayden’s use of diction emphasizes the obverse traits shown by the hardworking father and his sleepy son. The first line states: “Sundays too my father got up early”, allowing the reader to infer that this story is set in the speaker’s past. Sunday, which most people acknowledge as the day of rest, is everything but for the narrator’s father. He wakes up early, into the “blueblack cold”, like he does every other day of the week, to make “banked fires …show more content…
He sacrifices his own rest and comfort in order to ensure his family’s. His hands, which “cracked and ached” from years of labor work, push him out of bed every morning, start fires, and go back to work again. Hayden’s word choice reveals that the narrator’s father is a hardworking man who provides for his family, no matter how much it taxes himself, yet “no one ever thanked him,” including his weary son. This exemplifies the “lonely offices”of a parent’s love,which the speaker regrets misunderstanding in his adolescence. Parents are expected to love, care for, and teach their children without the need of thanks or a reward. When this view is shared by both the parent and their child, their bond becomes more of a duty than a relationship. The love becomes cold and “austere”, instead of warm and inviting, detaching the parent from their child, or in this case, a father from his son. The young man is well aware of his father’s struggle, but never tried to get up
The boy comprehends the severity of the situations he is faced with, such as lack of food or water, and treats his father with the same respect and equality that the man gives him. He insists on sharing his portions with his father when they are uneven, and he remains cautious at all times, even when his father is not. The boy’s fire is fueled by his love for his father, which is shown by the boy’s priority on caring for his father’s wellbeing, just as the man does for him. This love and responsibility, manifesting in the form of self-sacrifice and compassion, lies in direct juxtaposition to the rest of the world, where selfishness and indifference reigns
The poem is written in the father’s point of view; this gives insight of the father’s character and
The author begins the second chapter by recalling his father’s appearance. He describes his father as a “really fine looking man”. Continuing, he explains how his father “dressed carefully” so much that he even “put an open white handkerchief in his breast pocket”. Though in these descriptions he appears to have a positive, respectful attitude toward his father, he proceeds to mention numerous ways in the contrary. In one of the following paragraphs he makes the statement, “Nothing could ever persuade Father that he was anything but a naturally home-loving body – which, indeed, for a great part of the time, he was”. By saying this the author recognizes that his father thinks of
Being a child, is one of the hardest stages of ones life. They go through doing all the wrongs in order to do the right, and they socially develop into a mature and sensible human being. During this stage of a young child's life, the roles of parenting are absolutely crucial. In the poem "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden, I get a sense that the narrator does not have a special bond with his father, and that there is a sense of fear. I feel that in order to grow up and be a morally strong and stable person, you need a well-built relationship with at least one of you parents, if not both.
Reading line after line, one can almost smell, hear, and even see everything the speaker says, “I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking” (P. 677, line 6). When the speaker tells us that the father put his clothes on in the cold, I can almost feel the cold breeze hitting my body and hear the wind blowing, “and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,” (P. 677, line 2). One can experience the pain that the father went through as well; I can almost feel his dry and rough hands scratching my face, “then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made” (P. 677, lines
Most of his discontent is due to his father’s infidelity, and the dependency of money set by social standards. When his father’s secret of infidelity is brought to the surface Chris broods over the audacity of his father to put two families at risk for his selfish desires. This increases the tension already present shared between his father and himself because of their opposed ideas and stubborn stances on them. Chris, even as a child, always opposed the idea of monetary dependency that his parents worked so hard to obtain. Chris loathes his family and society’s infatuation that...
Many people don’t recognize others’ expressions of love. For instance, children may not realize that simple actions made by their parents are their parents’ way of saying “I love you.” In the poem, “Those Winter Sundays,” Robert Hayden describes an adult who regrets not appreciating his father as a child, and who now has a better understanding of the challenging and occasionally lonely responsibilities of a parent. The way in which Hayden describes the father’s and the narrator’s actions, his use of K and hard C words, and his portrayal of love in the last line of the poem illuminate Hayden’s message that parents will do and sacrifice anything for their children out of love and, therefore, one should take time to appreciate them.
“The Winter Sundays” is a poem that sets an example for kids in our current generation that may not appreciation their parents or their families. Hayden’s poem is a common situation that anyone can experience. Lesson is that you should appreciate your parents and love ones before they are gone and you are left with the feeling of guilt. That guilt can and will weigh heavy on you because your dad or mom have always been there and sacrificed everything for your
In Robert Hayden’s poem, “Those Winter Sundays”, he recalls what his father did on every winter Sunday and how he treated his father in the childhood. By using vivid images and selective words, Hayden describes how his father expressed love to him and his regretting to how he treated his father.
The poem “Those Winter Sundays” Robert Hayden expresses regret through this poem about his father. This poem is set when the speaker was a child which makes this poem older than from 1966. The poem is a reflection of his father years before. The speaker describes his father as a hard worker through the week and even on Sundays, which was a weekly routine. The speaker says, “Sundays too my father got up early / and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, / then with cracked hands that ached / from labor in the weekday weather made / banked fires blaze” (Hayden lines 1-5). The speaker says, “Sundays too” (Hayden line 1) as if it were included like every other weekday. Traditionally, families rest and participate in other activities other than work on Sundays, but not the speaker’s father. His father worked hard no matter what state the weather was or his physical condition was, he had a family to care for, which was his objective.
Hayden first sympathizes with his father by saying, “Sundays too…” (line 1). His father made many sacrifices for him but, as a child, he was unable to recognize them. So, by saying, “too” he implies that his father must have gotten up early every single day as well to work or help his family around the home in any way possible. The poem’s meaning splits between what Hayden knew as a boy and his experiences gained growing up to become a man, and perhaps as a father now, too. In the first stanza, the audience is introduced to the
The significance of the father’s story and “Coming Home Again” is to show the growing disconnection between a son and a mother. All the mother wants is for her son to be more successful than she is, even if she occasionally regrets sending him away to school. Consequently, the son becomes impatient and distant—as most teenagers do—until he matures into an adult and begins to regret the negative attitude he once held towards his mother. Unfortunately, his mother’s early death caused remorse for his negative attitude towards her as a teenager. Nonetheless, he remains connected with her after her cancer-related death through cooking, in which he finds himself cooking the exact way she would.
In analyzing poetry there has to be a connection between the author and the reader, in order to understand what the author is trying to express through his/her work. The reader’s needs to be able to read between the lines. Tone and mood help the reader identify what the poem is trying to convey. To do this we need to figure out who the speaker is, and the relationship the speaker has with his/her family. We will be depicting “Those Winter Sundays,” “Digging,” “Dusting,” and “My Grandmother Would Rock quietly and hum” searching for these qualities.
The first gift Chris gave me was the full interpretation of responsibility. When Chris Gardner got abandoned by his wife and became an on-and-off-homeless salesman with a five-year old son, he didn’t mess up with life. I see a matured and brave man. Although tears already blurred his eyes, he hold tightly of his son and didn’t forget to tell him knock-knock jokes. He knows the art of being a good father. The fatherhood became Chris’s power sources and reason to carry on even when life collapse. I haven’t become a father, but I think being responsible is common to man in every age. It is man’s nature to be protective to persons h...
This is a unique poem on basis of the structure. It has a total of three stanzas and each of it consists of four lines. The poem does not have rhyme scheme and hence, it can be mistakenly taken to be a prose poem. Each line in the poem brings out various emotions expressed by the speaker and hence, the storyline is built up step by step.