Analysis Of Robert Hayden 's ' Those Winter Sundays '

As we get older we tend to reflect more on our life and get our priorities together. We tend to realize who and what is important, the people who mean the most to us and the ones we can’t live without. Who would those significant individuals be for us? For most people it would be their parents. In the poems “My Father’s Song” by Simon J. Ortiz, and “My Mother” by Ellen Bryant Voigt, both writers express their emotion towards a parent. The poems are similar in many ways simply because they share a parent child relationship, they are also vastly different. “My Fathers Song” is a poem about a son who lost his father and is grieving and referring back to old memories, reflecting on their past and the wonderful time he had with his father. “My Mother” on the other hand is a poem about a daughter who lost her mother and is having a difficult time coping as she reflects on the decisions she made as a child and how that affected her relationship with her mother. Despite their differences, the two poems share a true connection of love towards their parent. Most notably “My Fathers Song” and “My Mother” differ in the relationship with their parent, the settings in which the memories they hold of their parents take place, and who they are mourning over, yet the two have a strong emphasis on love.

Everyone has a father. No matter if the father is present in a child’s life or not, he still exists and takes that role. A father has a major impact on his child whether he knows it or not, and that impact and example shapes the child’s perspective on life, and on love. The authors, Robert Hayden and Lucille Clifton, share the impact of their fathers through poetry, each with their own take on how their fathers treated them. The poems “Forgiving My Father” and “Those Winter Sundays” have significant differences in the speaker’s childhood experiences, the tone of the works, and the imagery presented, which all relate to the different themes of each poem.

An ideal father should be someone who nurtures and lovingly cares for his offspring, and some kids are blessed by this opportunity growing up to spend time with their father, even if their parents are divorced. As the years go by our fathers grow older and we too grow old. We start to reminisce about the nostalgic times we had when we were young. In the poems “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, and “Tips From My Father” by Carol Ann Davis; the authors draw from different life events, in which each communicate a happy memory with their fathers to the audience, and conclude a common theme surrounding a bond with their fathers, which can be inferred through how the parents care about their kids and show affection to them by giving their

The title "Those Winter Sundays" is used to look back on the writer's childhood. In combination with the sonnet, the title emphasizes the guilt the author faces for not honoring his father when he had the chance. For instance, the father was still working diligently during the winter season to ensure his kid's comfort. Even on Sundays the father was up early and polished the child shoes for church. Regardless of the fathers' efforts, the child is not able to value them. Subsequently, after the passing of his father, the child asks himself, "What did I know, what did I know/ of love’s austere and lonely offices" (Hayden 13-14)? Naturally, the child is pondering the time he wasted by not giving the best regards to his compassionate father, whereas the following poem's writer embraces his unflattering father, even in the title.

Authors tend to write on subjects that they know the most about, or subjects that affect them on a personal level. Authors and poets use various aspects of life for the basis of their works, such as life experiences, romances, and family roles. Poems like “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden and “Forgiving My Father” by Lucille Clifton feature one of the most important roles in a family: a father. The two poems differ vastly in many regards, but many similarities surface among them and a common theme resides between them. Through the similarities they hold, the poems represent a common theme of regret for one’s lack of action.

Similarly, Hayden’s Those Winter Sundays starts with a young adult reflecting back on his childhood and remembering how hard his father worked. He thinks back and his tone is of admiration and respect. This is apparent when the young man reflects, “Sundays too my father got up early…No one ever thanked him.” (Hayden, 1-5) The young man is realizing how hard his father worked and how little recognition he got. This makes a certain degree of guilt come over the young man. He remembers “fearing the chronic angers of that house” (Hayden, 9) and dislikes his father because of it by “speaking indifferently to him” (Hayden, 10). Then the

Being a child is one of the hardest stages in a person’s life. They go through doing all the wrong things in order to learn how to do the right things, and then they socially develop into a sensible mature adult. During this stage of a young child's life, the roles of parenting are absolutely crucial and determine a child’s role that he/she is going to play in society in the future. This is a crucial part of everyone’s life, they need to learn what they are good at and what they are not good at. In the poem "Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden, there is a sense that the narrator does not have a special bond with his father when he was a young boy, and that there is a sense of fear toward his father. I

As we grow up, whether it is our parents or others, we are given help to build a better future. In “Those Winter Sundays”, the speakers father provides large quantities of aid toward the speaker. In the first line of the first stanza, “Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold.” Hayden notes two very small details that are awfully important. The first two words encompass a great deal of love, “Sundays too.”. The word too implies that not only does the father wake

At the beginning of the poem, it becomes apparent to the reader that the poem takes on a very dull tone from the title itself. “Those Winter Sundays” shows that the poem is gloomy and sad as opposed to summer days that are usually filled with brightness and warmth. Early in the poem, Hayden uses examples of imagery to show the diligence and hard work of the father. He states “Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blue-black cold” (Hayden 968). By using colors to describe the coldness of the house it allows to the reader to create a lucid image of what it must feel like. “Blue-black cold” suggests that inside the house it is as cold as when someone’s face or lips turn blue or black from the freezing weather. Another example of the father’s fine work ethic was Hayden’s choice of the words “Sundays too” rather than just saying “On Sundays”. Daniel Landau stated in an article “In the book of genesis, Chapter 2, versus 2 and 3, it is written that he rested on the seventh day, and sanctified it” (Landau). This gives a clear idea of the fact that the father works every day of the week, even on Sundays, which is usually a day that most people prefer to rest. By doing this, the reader can automatically visualize the effort that the father puts into the well-being of not only himself but his child as well.

In the poem “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden, the speaker is reflecting on his past with his father, but mainly the Sunday mornings he experienced during his childhood. Throughout the poem, there also happens to be a very dark and possibly even somber tone, which is shown by using several different types of literary devices. Hayden utilizes strong imagery supported by diction and substantial symbolism comprehensively. Furthermore, there are various examples of both alliteration and assonances. The poem does not rhyme and its meter has little to no order. Although the father labors diligently all day long, and he still manages to be a caring person in his son’s life. The poem’s main conflict comes from the son not realizing how good his father actually was to him until he was much older. When the speaker was a young boy, he regarded his father as a callous man due to his stern attitude and apparent lack of proper affection towards him. Now that the son is older, he discovers that even though his father did not express his love in words, he consistently did with his acts of kindness and selflessness.

The short poem of “Those Winter Sunday’s” by Robert Hayden, in this particular poem Hayden is a grown man reflecting on his past when he was a child. On a Sunday winter morning when he was a little boy his father would always get up early to gather wood to light the fires around the house so that his family would get out of bed into a warm cozy house. As Hayden grew older the author has come to an understanding of what regretfully has escaped him as a boy about his father he learned how difficult and lonely it must be of the duties of being a parent without expectation of reciprocity. To appreciate the form his father’s love has taken all hard work he does to keep his family safe and warm. The various elements of the poem work to support this

The poem describes Sunday morning, in relation to most modern day families, as most give thanks and rest for the coming week. The speaker speaks of his father who wakes up early before any of the rest of the family does and warms their home by

Although everyone has a father, the relationship that each person has with his or her father is different. Some are close to their fathers, while some are distant; some children adore their fathers, while other children despise them. For example, in Robert Hayden’s poem “Those Winter Sundays” Hayden writes about his regret that he did not show his love for his hardworking father sooner. In Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy,” she writes about her hatred for her brute father. Despite both authors writing on the same topic, the two pieces are remarkably different. Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” and Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays” have different themes that are assembled when the authors put their different uses of imagery, tone, and characterization together.

This is the mother saying don’t quit to her son she is saying if he quits life will only get harder The poem “Those Winter Days” shows the hardworking trait because the father works hard to keep the house warm and gets nothing in return for it. The quote “Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold”. This quote shows the trait hardworking because the father got up early every day in the cold to start a fire to warm the house.

The Poem “Those Winter Sundays” already implies it is cold in the title and continues throughout the poem with a simile of “blueblack cold” and metaphor “cold splintering ,breaking “. The mood expresses one of love for his father in addition to regret. His father would start the fire in the home when it was so cold, polish his shoes, and call him to wake once the house was warm. Remorsefully he recognized the love of his father yet detached at the time. This appears to be his father’s only day off, yet he woke up early to ensure the house was warm. This poem is a reflection of the author examining a time in his youth when his father worked hard all week. On Sunday, he would arise and ensure the house was warm with a fire before he would awaken