The narrator in Robert Hayden's "Those Winter Sundays" displays a son's recollection of how his father conveyed love for him by way of his deeds. It is a poem about a father-son bond and all the different emotions that touch both of them: affection, approval, anxiety, fault and even animosity. The narrator recalls on Sunday mornings the father woke up at the crack of dawn to add fuel to the furnace fire. The son was never woken up until the house became warm enough to tolerate so he could get dressed. His father got up early every day. He forfeited his own rest for the sake of his family. "Sundays too my father got up early" (Hayden line 1). It is obvious that the father's work consists of physical labor. Hayden states, "then with cracked
