Sacrifice And Love In Robert Hayden's Those Winter Sundays

Love and sacrifice are bound together, he who sacrifices does not expect something in return, but the mere knowledge that his loved ones are protected. This is essentially what the poem Those Winter Sunday’s by Robert Hayden is centered around. Robert Hayden introduces the audience to a father and child relationship. The child is looking back to his childhood days, however, only now as an adult does he recognizes just how much his father did for him, and how insensible he was not to realize it then. The reader sees the understanding or regret that the now adult feels, as he realizes what the child version of himself could not. The theme of sacrifice and love that the poem conveys is made evident through the use of kinesthetic imagery, the use of diction, as well as the father's actions throughout the …show more content…
As a result, the reader gets a vivid description that allows them to sympathize with the father’s sacrifices. For example, in line three and four “then with cracked hands that ached from labor in the weekday weather made” (Hayden 3-4) the reader gets a sense of knowledge that the father is a hardworking man that is constantly exposed to a cold climate, because of the description of the father’s painful cracked hands due to harsh weather. In line one and two of the poem “Sunday’s too my father got up early and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold” (Hayden 1-2). Because of these lines it can be assumed that Sundays are the father’s days off, on which he would be able to rest. However it is obvious by the way the cold is described “blueblack” that is very early when he awakes None the less, he is still willing to face the bitter coldness to spare his family. This is proven in line seven “When the rooms were warm, he’d call,” (Hayden 7). By this point is evident the father is willing to sacrifice his own comfort so his family does