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Analysis essay of those winter sundays
Analysis essay of those winter sundays
What is the figurative language in the poem those winter sundays
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Those winter Sundays is a poem about a memory. This poem is composed of three stanzas narrated by an adult son remembering the care of his father during his childhood. He starts by depicting the excruciating physical work that his dad performed in the cold each morning. The speaker gives us insight into what Sunday mornings were to him as a child and apparent problems that the speaker was not aware of back in the day. In this first stanza, the reader learns about the father getting up in the cold to warm the house before the rest of his family gets up. Getting up in the cold to warm your family requires disinterested love. The first stanza ends with the phrase "No one ever thanked him", insinuating the sense of regret. In the second stanza, …show more content…
Maybe her parents were in an unhappy marriage, or maybe they had struggled financially. The only thing that is clear is that it was an unhappy house. The various elements of the poem work to support the theme and contribute to the poem's emotional appeal. Each stanza helps to evoke different emotions and builds to support the theme. The nostalgic tone of the speaker evokes a feeling of regret and sadness. We can feel the pain and sadness of the speaker through the words used throughout the poem. Frequent use of commas also provides pauses that prevent us from reflecting. Many times we look at a certain point in our lives with regret. We feel that if we knew what we now know, things would have been different. As we grow older, our view of the world is changed through experience and maturity. In “Those Winter Sundays," the speaker is a man who reflects on his past and his apathy toward the father when the speaker was a child. As an adult, the speaker came to understand what had unfortunately escaped him as a boy. Now he has learned to appreciate the way his father's love took over. The speaker now understands how difficult and solitary the duties of parental love can be and how they are sustained by detachment and without expectation of
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.
"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.
In the poem “Those Winter Sundays”, Robert Hayden begins his remembrance of his father on a winter Sunday, a day of rest for most working class peoples in the era this poem was written. In the first stanza, he shows his father, even on his day of rest getting up out of a warm bed, to put his clothes on “in the blueblack cold”. The man is getting up early so he can get the house warm for his family before they start to stir for the day. Mr. Hayden helps the reader to see his father: a man who labors with his hands out in the cold through the week, “cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather” to provide for his family. The man can be seen quietly moving about the house, banking the fire as he prepares for the day with nary a grumble.
In Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays”, the readers follow the narrator’s seemingly dark memory of his father: who worked, sacrificed, and endured many pains for his family, and mainly, his son (the narrator). As one reads, they come to see that this father is gratefully unappreciated. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the father is violent and abusive and the main contributing factor for why the narrator has come to fear him. As the narrator begins to end his reflection, he comes to a revelation and understanding of his father and seems to come to terms with the role he played in this father and son relationship. While in the young stages of life, many seem to lack an appreciation of those closest to us, our parents. It is only in time, when one becomes mature enough, do we see the reality of the many sacrifices, blood and tears that they, our parents, have shed for us and it is only than that one finally comes to fully appreciate those who gave us life.
The poem is written in the father’s point of view; this gives insight of the father’s character and
“Those Winter Sundays,” by Robert Hayden, talks about his childhood and how his father went out of his way to please his boy and others, but never did he show any gratitude or appreciation. Now as an adult, the poet starts to feel guilty and miserable for never letting his father know he was a good man. The poem starts out by telling us the situations the poet’s father would go out into to do things for others, yet no one ever thanked him, he was unrecognized.
In the poem “Those Winter Sundays” the author, Robert Hayden, uses descriptive and colloquial diction to further emphasize the harsh and lonely tasks his father performed to show the love he had for his son in an unconventional way. Hayden uses cacophonous words such as “cracked”, “splintering”, “ached” and “banked” to stress the stark chores his father did without being asked or thanked. Instead of traditional displays of affection like hugs and kisses, his father is humble when doing gritty work to support his family. The author also uses concrete and denotative words when describing everything his father did up until the last line where he uses abstract words such as “love”, “austere” and “lonely”. This further demonstrates the limited perspective
Johnson, Jeannine. "An overview of "Those Winter Sundays"." Poetry for Students. Detroit: Gale. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 25 April 2014. .
...e family’s life style; that they live in poverty and go to church on Sundays. The poem is centered on one question: “what did I know of love's austere and lonely offices?” The majority of the poem is examples of “love’s austere and lonely offices”. One such example would be when the boy polishes his shoes, probably getting ready to go to church. The father, although poor, still passes on good values to his son by going to church on Sundays. Another example would be the father waking up earlier than the rest of the house to get it warmed up. He deeply cares and loves his family and doesn’t want them to suffer in the cold and darkness as long as possible (only suffer at night). Another example of the father’s love is when he wakes up earlier and gets the wood from the cold outside weather to keep the family and house warm instead of enlisting for help from his family.
Robert Hayden’s poem “Those Winter Sundays” is a concise poem that contains the themes of coming of age, and regret. The poem is written in first speaker narrative and from the perspective of the son. The speaker begins the poem by acknowledging his fathers routinely efforts for the family on Sunday mornings, those winter Sunday mornings. The poem is visual and the speaker describes the recollection of his father in an almost melancholic sense. The poem begins with the speaker speaking in the past tense, looking back at his relationship with his father. Toward the end, the speaker has matured and regrets his indifference toward his father.
First off when reading the title “Those Winter Sundays”,a visual image of warmth and relaxation enters one’s head as winter Sunday’s are associated with family and warmth. This feeling of warmth and relaxation felt by the child is due to the fact his father metaphorically and literally drove away the cold and brought the feeling of warmth to his child. When looking at the first stanza the words “blueblack” (Hayden 2) and “ached” (3) are used to describe the cold the father is facing and his exhausting after a week's worth of work. This vivid description of the father’s aches and pains allows the reader to comprehend the sacrifices the father makes out of love for his
Surprisingly enough the father seems to make this a part of his daily routine, which is remarkable and is truly an indicator that the father shows love for his family even if he is not appreciated. As the poem progresses the speaker shows that his home experience was not one of purely love itself. The speaker states “fearing the chronic angers of that hoes”, which from that it can be inferred that tension and anger had been an ongoing feeling in the speaker’s household. As the poem concludes we see that the speaker reflects back on not so much as his father’s actions, but his reaction. It can be concluded that with the “chronic anger” in his household, that he did not know what love was or how love can be characterized. The author then realizes that his father truly loved him, and he had been blind to that because that was not what love looked in the eyes of the speaker at a young age. This is where the theme of realization is expressed, because the author has reflected and has reached a realization that his father was not obligated to do these
When I read the first line the “too” seems to say that the speakers father got up early every day including Sunday. I think that most people sleep in on Sunday because it was a day of rest and only had to get up in time to go to church. The word “blueblack cold” makes me think that it was early morning before sunrise and possibly a cold and windy morning. I think that the speakers father is a hard working man who doesn't get much sleep. Then in lines 3-5 I found out that he is a hardworking man who isn't a bank teller or something cushy. He does intense physical labor and it is visible on his hands. He’s a tough guy and he makes the “banked fires blaze.” I think that he lights the fires in the fireplaces to warm up the house so that no one else in his family will have to get out of bed in the blueblack cold. The speaker ends the stanza by saying that no one ever told his father “thanks” for all that he did. The father is getting up early to warm the house for his family and no one ever said thank you. I am starting to feel like the speaker and the rest of his family are a bit ungra...
Winter, as he narrates, brings woe and causes wreck. The intense frost that sustained for several weeks caused the death of birds. The remnants of the beautiful bevy of birds – lapwings, starlets, thrushes, lied scattered in the fields. The “invisible beasts of prey” had wolfed the birds. The winter had massacred the song birds and their blood-soaked skins were spread all around. The beings that could not shield themselves against its rigours shivered with cold and were exposed to the fury of biting cold winds. Winter thus had brought a host of hardships to the poor souls who found it hard to face the vagaries of the weather.
Throughout the poem, imagery in order to convey an image inside the reader’s heads, so that they are able to picture what the narrator is trying to allude to. Lines such as “nobleness made simple as a fire”, and “beauty like a tightened bow” to enforce both the period it might have taken place and the tone the story is trying to create with the use of imagery as passive aggressiveness, and sadness. The passive aggressiveness of the poem comes from the bitter feels the narrator has for the woman mentioned in the poem and all the damage she’s done in life, while the sadness comes from being heart broken by the actions of the woman and everything she’s done after.