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Imagery in the poem those winter sundays
Reading response to these winter sundays
Imagery in the poem those winter sundays
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In our daily lives, we often hear about amazing acts of kindness strangers do for other strangers, but we never stop to realize all the little acts people, who love us, do. In Robert Hayden's poem, “Those Winter Sundays,” the son is reminiscing about Sunday mornings and his father. The son realizes all the work his father did was because of the father’s love for him. Robert Hayden’s multitude of elements elicits the idea that true love requires sacrifice.
Robert Hayden uses diction to show how the father’s work is done in love. He explains how on “Sundays too” the father “got up early.” Every day the father gets up early for work, then on top of that, his job is manual labor. The use of “too” emphasizes that the father’s routine is going
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to work during the weekdays, but he also works the weekend. We are able to see that the father doesn’t need to on Sundays, but he chooses to. The father offers his time and energy to keep the family warm and satisfied. He cares more about his son than his getting adequate sleep. Waking up early is difficult enough already for people, much less doing physical work every day. Every time the father rises, he is filled with the “blueblack cold” from outside. After all his arduous work nobody “ever thanked him.” From the son’s perspective, he probably never thought to give thanks because it was his father. He would’ve just believed that that was his father’s job, as a parent, to make him happy. However, as the son grew up, he’s looking back and realizing how much his father did to keep him satisfied. Because no one ever acknowledged all of his work, he’s filled the coldness from his family, and from the actual cold outside. “When the rooms were warm,” the father would tell the children that it’s acceptable to rise. The father would work extremely hard, and early in the morning, to ensure the house was the right temperature. The word “when” emphasizes the importance of the father making sure he never called too early. As a child, the son never recognized the importance of the fire, but as an adult he’s able to realize how hard it was. The fire symbolizes the work and effort the father exerted for his family. Once the son knew the struggle his father experienced, he could clearly see his father's love for him. At the end the son asks what he knew of “love’s austere and lonely offices,” or as a child what did he know about tough love. During his childhood the son would see all the work his father would do, but never thought anything of it. Now that he has grown up, he’s realized that all the work was done in with the right intent. Done to keep the son pleased, done because his father loved him. Everything the father did someway or somehow would end up benefitting the son. Robert Hayden's syntaxical details further emphasizes the central meaning that love takes sacrifice.
Every Sunday the father would wake up in the “blueblack cold” and made “banked fires blaze.” In the morning he would experience the bitter cold. The cold was very dark, similar to the father’s personality. However, the cold can be contrasted to the ‘banked fires,” or warmth and light. The reader can see that the father has a harsh demeanor about him, like the cold, but is loving. The austerity of the father negatively affects the son, but as he matures he overcomes the obstacle. In the next stanzas the reader sees that the son wakes up in the “splinter, breaking” cold, but the father would tell the son when it’s acceptable to wake up. Once the “rooms were warm” the son would begin his day. The switch from cold to warm can be compared to when the son talks “indifferently” to his father. The reader is shown that both the father and son have obstacles standing in their way of seeing the love they have for each other. As the son grows, he begins to see that everything his father did was to show his love, and not just because the father is …show more content…
cold. When Hayden writes from the point of view of the son, it shows how as children we don’t fully understand how powerful love is.
The son witnesses the father working to keep the house warm, yet doesn’t fully understand why it's significant. All the son thinks about is the “chronic angers” of the house. Perhaps his family was constantly bickering or parents were disagreeing. All of this led him to speak “indifferently to him [the father],” therefore creating a gap in their father/son relationship. The gap affected how the son viewed the father, thereby hurting his view of love. The son was never able to see how much his father truly loved him until he grew up and matured. When he begins to question himself on “what did he [I] know,” the reader can see that the son almost laments not being able to see his father's love. As an adult, the son is able to see how the father's actions were all done in love. The father may have been unable to express his love verbally, thus damaging his relationship with his son, but he was able to show his love through actions, which would be later seen as
love. The use of diction shows that there are many ways to show love for one another. Through the syntax of the poem, the reader can see how feelings towards one another will affect your ability to see love and experience. Hayden’s point of view, from the son, aids the reader in knowing that love can sometimes only be discovered as an adult. Robert Hayden is able to show that love isn’t just a feeling, it’s a lifestyle, and requires work and sacrifice.
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.
At the beginning of the poem, the audience is able to witness an event of a young boy asking his father for story. While the father was deemed a “sad” man, it is later shown that his sadness can be contributed to his fear of his son leaving him. The structure then correlated to the point of going into the future. The future was able to depict what would happen to the loving duo. The father's dreams would become a reality and the son's love and admiration would cease to exist as he is seen screaming at his father. Wanting nothing to do with him. The young, pure child can be seen trying to back lash at his father for acting like a “god” that he can “never disappoint.” The point of this structure was not really a means of clarification from the beginning point of view, but more as an intro to the end. The real relationship can be seen in line 20, where it is mentioned that the relationship between the father and son is “an emotional rather than logical equation.” The love between this father and son, and all its complexity has no real solution. But rather a means of love; the feelings a parent has for wanting to protect their child and the child itself wanting to be set free from their parents grasp. The structure alone is quite complex. Seeing the present time frame of the father and son
The poem is written in the father’s point of view; this gives insight of the father’s character and
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.
The central conflict in Robert Hayden’s poem “Those Winter Sundays”, is the unfortunate realization that the speaker never truly thanked or appreciated his father’s sacrifices when he was a child. After growing up, taking on responsibilities, and achieving a rehabilitated understanding of the world through experience, Hayden expresses his ingratitude that often accompanies with youth. The first line of the first stanza writes, “Sundays too my father got up early/and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold” (Hayden, 17). Out of these two lines, the word “too” is filled with importance because Sunday’s are dedicated to either religious practices, or rest for a working man. Fortunately, this was not his father’s case as his father would wake up early in order to perform his loving and self-sacrificing duties.
"Those Winter Sundays" by Robert Hayden is a poem about a how the author is recalling how his father would wake up early on Sundays, a day which is usually a reserved as a day of rest by many, to fix a fire for his family. The mood of this poem is a bit sad. It portrays a father, who deeply cares for his family but doesn't seem to show it by emotions, words, or touching. It also describes a home that isn't very warm in feelings as well as the title" Those Winter Sundays" The author describes the father as being a hard worker, in the line "…with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday…", but still even on Sundays--the day of rest, the father works at home to make sure the house is warm for his family. The "blueblack cold described in the poem is now warmed by a father's love. This poem describes the author reminiscing what did not seem obvious at the time, the great love of his father, and the author's regretting to thank his father for all that he did.
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
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 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 ...
Many writers use powerful words to portray powerful messages. Whether a writer’s choice of diction is cheerful, bitter, or in Robert Hayden’s case in his poem “Those Winter Sundays,” dismal and painful, it is the diction that formulates the tone of the piece. It is the diction which Hayden so properly places that allows us to read the poem and picture the cold tension of his foster home, and envision the barren home where his poem’s inspiration comes from. Hayden’s tumultuous childhood, along with the unorthodox relationships with his biological parents and foster parents help him to create the strong diction that permeates the dismal tone of “Those Winter Sundays.” Hayden’s ability to both overcome his tribulations and generate enough courage
In his narrative poem, Frost starts a tense conversation between the man and the wife whose first child had died recently. Not only is there dissonance between the couple,but also a major communication conflict between the husband and the wife. As the poem opens, the wife is standing at the top of a staircase looking at her child’s grave through the window. Her husband is at the bottom of the stairs (“He saw her from the bottom of the stairs” l.1), and he does not understand what she is looking at or why she has suddenly become so distressed. The wife resents her husband’s obliviousness and attempts to leave the house. The husband begs her to stay and talk to him about what she feels. Husband does not understand why the wife is angry with him for manifesting his grief in a different way. Inconsolable, the wife lashes out at him, convinced of his indifference toward their dead child. The husband accepts her anger, but the separation between them remains. The wife leaves the house as husband angrily threatens to drag her back by force.
This contrast between a hands-on, physical man and an arrogant “show man,” is further emphasized in stanza three. Rather than working outside in the fields, the father is “sat all day in the tall grass sweet-talking weak jaws.” The father’s lack of activity is again contrasted with the mother trying to “make money like food and clothes and be the sum of every question.” These contrasts highlight the arrogance and pride of the father in the son’s eyes. The speaker shows how he despises his father for having these qualities and also expresses sympathy towards his mother.