A Cold Lesson Learned

854 Words2 Pages

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. From the first line of the poem, the speaker acknowledges his fathers efforts for the family on Sunday mornings by stating how his father dedicated his day off to do things for the family. The speaker acknowledges the extra effort his father put in when he wrote “Sundays too my father got up early” (Hayden 677). The word “too” in this line is important because it helps the reader understand that he does not only wake up early on Sundays, but every single day. In the last sentence of the first stanza the speaker admits to the reader “No one ever thanked him” (5). This goes on to show that in the present the speaker feels regret for not appreciating his father waking up early to start a fire. The speaker uses imagery in the first stanza to incite the reader so that they can imagine the setting in which the father begins his day on Sunday mornings. The “blueblack cold,” blue is the color Hayden wants the reader to visualize and cold is what Hayden wants the reader to feel, those are two different types of scenery details, which are sight and touch (2). Then he goes off to say “with cracked hands ... ... middle of paper ... ... should be appreciated for that reason. The speaker started off the poem by remembering his father’s diligence on Sunday mornings and then ends the poem by accepting that he was growing and did not understand at the time that his father truly loved him even though there was no contact between the speaker and his father during the narrative of the poem. Hayden leaves the speaker with a nostalgic sense at the end of the poem and does not include the speaker being able to finally tell his father thank you for all the work that he is done, it leaves the reader wondering if the father has passed away or why the speaker is thinking about these nostalgic memories of his father. Works Cited 1. Hayden, Robert “Those Winter Sundays.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. X.J. Kennedy& Dana Gioia 12th ed. New Jersey: Pearson 2013. 677. Print.

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