Love Revealed In John Hayden's Those Winter Sundays

Fathers and mothers have different responsibilities, roles, and ways of showing affection within the family. A mother connects with her children more in both a physical display of emotion, where as a father shows emotion in his work ethic. Fathers expect for their love to be understood without displaying it. In Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays”, it is the father’s love called into question by the author. Hayden uses imagery, personification, and diction to look back on his childhood with regret towards his treatment of his father. The author uses imagery in the poem to emphasize different aspects of his father. Hayden says “Sundays too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blue-black cold,” to show the time of day his father

He didn’t just say he feared the house either. He specifically used the works “chronic angers of that house.” (9 Hayden) Chronic means continuous, so Hayden means his father was always angry, he however never directly mentions an abusive relationship between his father and himself. Through personification the writer channels his father’s emotions when he speaks of the house. The poem was set in the past of the writer; it’s even represented in the title, “Those Winter Sundays.” The poet goes on to say that “No one ever thanked him.” The writer viewed his father as an all-business type of man and an angry man, but he didn’t look at why his father did what he did, nor did he ever thank him for providing for him. Hayden doesn’t see this as an intentional overlook. He sees it as himself being a child and not understanding. Then when he says, “What did I know, What did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices?” (13-14 Hayden) The author really goes deep into how he spoke to his father “Speaking indifferently to him.”(10 Hayden) Hayden has a deep emotional regret for not being appreciative of his father’s