preview

Essay Comparing My Papa's Waltz And Those Winter Sundays

Decent Essays

In the two poems “Those winter Sundays” and “My Papa’s Waltz” the authors are remembering their childhood with their fathers. The first poem “Those Winter Sundays” it is about a man who gets up early in the morning and builds a fire for his family. It also is saying how no one ever thanked him for his hard work. The second poem “My Papa’s Waltz” is about how as a boy, the author would dance around with his father, and how he could smell the alcohol on his father’s breath. It was an unpleasant feeling but the son got over the difficulties of it and loved to dance with him. The two poems explore the relationship between the speakers and their fathers. The relationship in the two poems show through author’s childhood memories, of their father’s actions and how the son responded to those actions. …show more content…

The words “cracked hands” tells the reader that he worked really hard. The speaker uses imagery to show how dark it was back in the old days and how the father would have to wake up early in the morning and go out in the cold just to chop wood to build a fire. You could visual how hard of a time the father was having when he was doing this because of the cold winter days they had. However, we don’t know how much snow was on the ground. When the speaker was a child he knew that his father did hard work to support his family, but he did not know on how to help his dad or what to the meaning of the word “work” really was. However, in this poem there is a little bit of guilt maybe because of how no one ever helped the father with the labor. The father did not seem to mind that no one ever thanked him because he loved helping his family. When Hayden says “What did I know, what did I know / of love’s austere and lonely offices” (13-14). When the boy says this he realizes the difficulties that will come when he is

Get Access