Literary Analysis Of 'Those Winter Sundays' By Robert Hayden

At the beginning of the poem “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden, the speaker introduces cold and uncomfortable images to relay the tone of the poem: Regret for not respecting his father. Hayden uses “blueback cold” in the second line, presenting a tone of sadness and loneliness throughout the house that the speaker and his family like in. The word “blueblack” is such an uncommon word that it carries an extremely negative feeling, exemplifying the cold feeling of distance throughout the family. This developing tone of regret and distance is also created through the speaker’ representation of his father with “cracked hands that ached,” which indicates the father’s struggle with the harsh coldness. The “stirring of banked fires” within …show more content…
Although the father tries, his family does not notice the struggle he made, shown in line four when “No one ever thanked him.” The past tense of the poem shows that a regretful realization of ingratitude toward the father has dawned on the speaker, who now realizes through the memories of his father that the man’s actions were warm and appreciative. The speaker now realizes that his father had “driven out the cold” (cold being both literal and figurative), and by doing to, tried to warm the family and keep family relationships from freezing over. Hayden’s repeated useage of cold and bitterness, ending with his father’s success, represents the speaker’s memories of a touch past. It also shows his regret of never thanking his father for taming the uncomfortable elements. The repeated “What did I know, what did I know” emphasizes how much he now understands about the importance of his father’s small sacrifices compared to his …show more content…
While the poem starts off with childish anticipation of the long wait until the berries were ripe, it then introduces dark words to describe the blackberries, such as “summer’s blood was in it” and “our palms as sticky as Bluebeard’s” create a suspenseful atmosphere. His inclusion of the reference to the sticky hands of Bluebeard (who killed his wives in a fairy tale) creates morbid imagery of blood and hints at the disappointment to come in the following stanza. The second stanza shows the loss of innocence for the speaker and his friends, who can finally see the dark underlying theme just as they spot the “rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.” All of their hard efforts are “stinking” along with the fruit, which is “fermented”, “turn[ed] sour.” This has been a reoccurring event in their lives that leaves their childish optimism dashed: “Each year I hoped they’d keep, knew they could not.” By ending with the couplet and the negative-sounding rhyming pair “rot” and “not,” the poem is ended with an ongoing internal struggle inside the young pickers to deal with adult disappointments of