Those Winter Sundays Analysis Essay

In the poem “Those Winter Sundays,” Robert Hayden is trying to show his remorse for not seeing how much his father loved him and not appreciating everything that his father did for him. He doesn’t say this directly, but shows us through his story and his words. He tells us about the things his father did for him and how he treated his father. Hayden feels very remorseful for being so oblivious to all the ways his father showed he loved Hayden when he was younger and he feels badly about treating his father so poorly.
Hayden shows that no one, even Hayden, thanked his father for all the things he did for him. His father worked hard all week and he also got up on Sundays to make sure house was warm for his son. An example of this in the poem is the first paragraph, “Sundays too my father got up early / and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold, / then with cracked hands that ached, / from labor in the weekday weather made / banked fires blade. No one ever thanked him.” In these lines, Hayden is starting to show us the remorse he feels. He is saying that even though his father works hard during the week, he still is willing to get up on Sundays to get the house warm to show his love to his son. …show more content…
An example of this in the poem is at the beginning of the second paragraph, “I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking. / When the rooms were warm, he’d call, / and slowly I would rise and dress, / fearing the chronic angers of that house, / Speaking indifferently to him…” In these lines, we get a sense of how he viewed his dad back then. He is showing us him and his father didn’t really get along. He is telling us he felt that his dad was always angry and this is probably why they didn’t get along too well. Next, he starts to show more remorse for not realizing all that his father did for