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Essay about figurative language
Poems on parenting and parent child relationships
Essay about figurative language
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A perceived lack of love can lead to indifference. Robert Hayden’s fourteen line poem “Those Winter Sundays” exemplifies this. Hayden writes of an adult, whose gender is not revealed, looking back on his youth and understanding how father loved him. This poem opens with a description of how the father began his Sundays. Through his use of words like “cracked hands that ached/ from labor” (lines 3-4), Hayden is able to convey the idea that the father is a hard working man with a blue collar job. This insight makes the fact that the father rises early on “Sundays too”(line 1) to “ma[k]e/ banked fires blaze”(lines 4-5) in the “blueblack cold”(line 2) all the more remarkable. The cold is described as being blueblack. This has a multilayered meaning. …show more content…
The first is simply that the father wakes up before it is light, while the sky is blueblack. Blue and black are also cool colors that connote the feeling of cold. This use of synesthesia allows the feeling and the image of those winter Sunday mornings to be evoked. The entire poem is told in the past tense.
This gives the feeling that an adult is looking back upon his life. The closing lines especially give this feeling. The narrator says, “What did I know, what did I know/ of love’s austere and lonely offices?”(lines 13-14). It seems as though the narrator is looking back at his life in hindsight, and realizing that he did not know the different meanings of love as a child. The speaker may not have realized that his father had a different way of showing his love. It is obvious now that through his building of the fires in the early morning and his “polish[ing of the speaker’s] good shoes”(line 12) that the father was proving his …show more content…
love. Another clue that the speaker did not understand the different ways of showing love is that he “fear[ed] the chronic angers of that house”(line 9).
This too could be interpreted in multiple ways. It could mean that abuse was prevalent in his family, be it verbal or physical. Abuse could also explain why “No one ever thanked”(line 5) the father for his deeds and why the narrator “Sp[oke] indifferently to him”(line 10). This could be because if the father was an abuser, the rest of the family would never be able to know what would anger him and therefore choose to ignore the positive things the father did altogether. Another interpretation of line 9 could be that the “angers” of the house were not the traditional, physical anger, but rather tension. This tension could be due to financial troubles, as the father is a hard working physical laborer who likely does not make much money. It could also be due to stress in the relationship of the parents, assuming both are still alive. A third interpretation of this line is that the author is personifying the house itself. The “angers of that house” could be that the house itself is unhappy about the lack of gratitude that the family is showing the
father. As a youth, the speaker does not believe that his father loves him. He does not understand that everyone has a different way of expressing love, and that his father showed it through his actions as opposed to words or embraces. As an adult, the speaker realizes this. He also realizes that love is far more complicated than it seems as a child. When he was young, the speaker felt unloved by his father. This caused him to act indifferent towards the man who provided for him. Many people, when they do not feel as though they are being loved, will try to act nonchalant as a defense mechanism. Love is not as simple as it seems to a child. As one grows up, one is able to realize this and forgive those who one had perceived to have not loved one.
While most of us think back to memories of our childhood and our relationships with our parents, we all have what he would call defining moments in our views of motherhood or fatherhood. It is clearly evident that both Theodore Roethke and Robert Hayden have much to say about the roles of fathers in their two poems as well. While the relationships with their fathers differ somewhat, both men are thinking back to a defining moment in their childhood and remembering it with a poem. "My Papa's Waltz" and "Those Winter Sundays" both give the reader a snapshot view of one defining moment in their childhood, and these moments speak about the way these children view their fathers. Told now years later, they understand even more about these moments.
The lack of verbal communication between his father and himself can be seen in his poem "Those Winter Sundays." The overall impression of the poem is that love can be communicated in other ways than through words; it can be communicated through everyday, mundane actions. For example, in the poem, the father awakens on "Sundays too" to warm the house with a fire and polish his sons shoes. There is a sense of coldness in the beginning of the poem through the lines:
“Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden, “My Father as a Guitar” by Martin Espada, and “Digging” by Seamus Heaney are three poems that look into the past of the authors and dig up memories of the authors fathers. The poems contain similar conflicts, settings, and themes that are essential in helping the reader understand the heartfelt feelings the authors have for their fathers. With the authors of the three poems all living the gust of their life in the 1900’s, their biographical will be similar and easier to connect with each other.
If I were asked who the most precious people in my life are, I would undoubtedly answer: my family. They were the people whom I could lean on to matter what happens. Nonetheless, after overhearing my mother demanded a divorce, I could not love her as much as how I loved her once because she had crushed my belief on how perfect life was when I had a family. I felt as if she did not love me anymore. Poets like Philip Levine and Robert Hayden understand this feeling and depict it in their poems “What Work Is” and “Those Winter Sundays.” These poems convey how it feels like to not feel love from the family that should have loved us more than anything in the world. Yet, they also convey the reconciliation that these family members finally reach because the speakers can eventually see love, the fundamental component of every family in the world, which is always presence, indeed. Just like I finally comprehended the reason behind my mother’s decision was to protect me from living in poverty after my father lost his job.
His ungratefulness as a child has now emerged on him, leaving the speaker ashamed of taking his father’s hard work for granted. In this poem he writes, “…fearing the chronic angers of that house//Speaking indifferently to him/who had driven out the cold…” (Hayden, 17). When he quotes “fearing chronic angers”, the speaker refers to his view of life as a child, and how he interpreted his father’s agony and self-sacrifice as anger towards him. With an apathetic and cold attitude that accompanied his youth, he did not recognize the love that his father had for him. Hayden also writes, “What did I know, What did I know…” (Hayden 17). Repeating this rhetorical question twice it is obvious that the speaker, now as an adult, feels deep remorse over the way he had treated his father. With a matured mind, Hayden came to the realization that love comes in all shapes and forms, and his father’s love was shown through his selfless
For my poetry paper I chose to examine poetry from the family album. The family album stood out to me significantly because I thoroughly enjoyed all of the poems because I had a personal connection with it. Family has always been an important part of my life and I think this particular album speaks volume. This album has many levels to it, some deeper than others. I feel that from reading poetry, it expands our ability to think and form ideas that we would have not thought about before. Poetry gives readers the ability to make connections on a deeper level and see things from a different perspective. The two poems that spoke to me in this album specifically were “Those Winter Sundays” By Robert Hayden and “Begotten” by Andrew Hudgins. These two poems are both similar because they are from a son’s point of view, talking about their parent(s). “Those Winter Sundays” was one of my all-time favorite poems from this album because it shows a hard working father who is dedicated to his family, but does not get any recognition for his hard work.
But as the poem goes on, you come to realize that there is a hidden secondary situation taking place. The more obvious parts of the poem is the two parents having sexual intercourse, and the child feeling all alone in their big house. Once the child comes into the parent’s room, we actually get to see them transform into the loving parents that they are. The author illustrates the exact moment in when the child barges in on his parents love making session. “But let there be that heavy breathing / … and make for it on the run- as now, we lie together, / after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies” (Kinnell (917). For some readers, it may be easy to see and comprehend this surface situation. The child is the product of their being, and this poem is about the love the whole family shares. The author uses euphemisms to display an image of affection and compassion versus a nasty and indecent love. Kinnell’s main focus is on the love and devotion between the parents. He conveys his focus through such words like “after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies / familiar touch of the long-married” (Kinnell 917). The act of their gentle and quiet love is what wakes their
The main issue in this poem, divorce is a common problem that damages everyone involved in its circumstances. However, in the very first line, the narrator declares, without shame, that he or she was glad when his or her parents got divorced. This strange feeling is not often associated with kids when their parents split; the feeling is usually one of remorse and sadness. This strange feeling is made reasonable as it is indicated that her mother “took it and took it in silence”—a rather dark selection of words which suggest that the father is the source of the family’s difficulties (1-2). The father’s departure is even compared to the departure of one arguably the most hated president in the history of America revealing that the children and mother had no desire for him to stay. Furthermore, the speaker elaborates on the father’s problems after
Family bonds are very important which can determine the ability for a family to get along. They can be between a mother and son, a father and son, or even a whole entire family itself. To some people anything can happen between them and their family relationship and they will get over it, but to others they may hold resentment. Throughout the poems Those Winter Sundays, My Papa’s Waltz, and The Ballad of Birmingham family bonds are tested greatly. In Those Winter Sundays the relationship being shown is between the father and son, with the way the son treats his father. My Papa’s Waltz shows the relationship between a father and son as well, but the son is being beaten by his father. In The Ballad of Birmingham the relationship shown is between
The poem “Those Winter Sundays” displays a past relationship between a child and his father. Hayden makes use of past tense phrases such as “I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking” (6) to show the readers that the child is remembering certain events that took place in the past. Although the child’s father did not openly express his love towards him when he was growing up, the child now feels a great amount of guilt for never thanking his father for all the things he actually did for him and his family. This poem proves that love can come in more than one form, and it is not always a completely obvious act.
The poem “Snapping Beans” by Lisa Parker is about a speaker and her grandmother. The girl is adjusting to college life, but she is having problems and cannot tell her grandmother; instead, she tells her, “School is fine”. She revels her inner thoughts in order for the reader to determine she is depressed and heart wrenched. It is hard for her to tell her religious grandmother about her friends writing about “sex, about alcoholism, about Buddha”. At the end Parker writes, “It’s funny how things blow loose like that.” This is a comparison to a college student and how they have to go away from their family and learn how to live on their own. Moreover, the poem “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden is about a father and a son relationship. His father wakes up every Sunday morning to light fireplaces to warm up their home and nobody thanks him for doing this. “Sundays” in the title evocate more feelings than the other days of the week do. Sundays may be pleasant family days at home or dull and depres...
The events of our childhood and interactions with our parents is an outline of our views as parents ourselves. Although Robert Hayden’s relationship with his father differentiates from the relationship of Theodore Roethke and his father, they are both pondering back to their childhood and expressing the events in a poem. “My Papa’s Waltz” and “Those winter Sundays” provide the reader with an image of a childhood event which states how fathers are being viewed by their children. These poems reflect upon the relationship of the father and child when the child was a youth. Both Roethke and Hayden both indicate that their fathers weren’t perfect although they look back admiringly at their fathers’ actions. To most individuals, a father is a man that spends time with and takes care of them which gains him love and respect. An episode of Roethke’s childhood is illustrated in “My Papa’s Waltz”. In “My Papa’s Waltz”, the father comes home showing signs of alcohol and then begins waltzing with his son. Roethke states that the father’s hands are “battered on one knuckle”. The mother was so upset about the dancing that she did nothing other than frown. At the end of the day, the father waltzed the son to bed. “Those Winter Sundays” is based on a regular Sunday morning. The father rises early to wake his family and warm the house. To warm the house, he goes out in the cold and splits wood to start a fire. This is a poem about an older boy looking back to his childhood and regretting that “No one ever thanked him.” In Those Winter Sundays'; by Robert Hayden, the poet also relinquishes on a regular occurrence in his childhood. On Sunday mornings, just as any other morning, his father rises early and puts on his clothes in the cold darkness. He ...
In Robert Hayden’s poem “Those Winter Sundays” show that children have a hard time understanding why a parent is distant the speaker says “Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on/ in the blueblack cold,”(Line 1-2) the father even gets up very early on Sundays as in the “blueblack cold” the speaker seems to not understand why the father does this why does he get up so early day after day? He seems to ask himself. The speaker observes that “ …With cracked hands the ached from labor in the weekday weather/ banked fires blazed”(Line 3-5) the father works hard for his family his hands are cracked and sore and he still gets up earlier then the rest of his family and makes the fire blaze to warm the house for them.
How pleasurable is the month of February for those who are are lucky enough to have a romantic partner to share Valentine's Day with? Single folks, however don't have much cause to care about this time of year, it might even be a least favorite of all. A close reading of Margaret Atwood’s poem, “February” guides readers into the psyche of a woman who is starving for a resurgence of love but eschews from confessing so. To begin an analysis of this poem, one must consider the literary connotations that could be drawn from the subject of winter. Although February is the shortest month of the year, it can often times feel as if it were the most drawn-out with its arctic conditions.
Stevens’ message reveals itself as the poem unravels: there is never one true understanding of a reality outside of one’s interpretation. The author suggests that one can’t help but transfer their own beliefs and ideas onto what they see; in this case, the “listener” is projecting an impression of misery onto the scenery that lies before him. For example, the first two stanzas are filled with decorative language that serves to describe the visual image of a winter landscape. Using phrases such as “crusted with snow” (3) instead of “covered” with snow provides an evocative illustration of the snow’s roughness. Other phrases such as “shagged with ice” (5) and “rough in the distant glitter/Of the January sun” (6-7) force the reader to experience the miserable portrayal of winter. These are not the descriptions of an observer who “beholds nothing that is not there” (14-15), but rather the objective, poetic appreciation for the snowy