Those Winter Sundays Essay

The poem “Those Winter Sundays” by Robert Hayden is a short lyrical poem that tells a particular story about the relationship between a father and son. Though the poem is filled with complex emotions, the simplistic language of the poem brings out the great use of imagery and alliteration that drawls out the density in each line. This poem is about two people, a son and a father. The son is recalling back to his adolescent years and his tough relationship with his father. The son, as a boy, did not see the love his father had for him and in turn never returned love back; however, the son, as a man, realized that his father’s hard work and small actions like making a fire early in the morning were huge indicators of his father’s love and devotion …show more content…
The poem begins in the first stanza on an early Sunday morning with the father's daily, demanding routine that symbolizes the tone that the poem will follow. Sundays are mostly known as a religious day of leisure but “Sundays too my father got up early” signifies that there was no rest for his father and that his father put his devotion and family first (pg. 869 line 1). Hayden creates an image of what the father looked like getting up in the cold darkness to start his routine. The words “blueblack cold” highlights how deathly cold it was and compares it frostbite that can cause gangrene or “death” of the body part due to poor circulation (pg. 869 line2). The father’s dedication to his family to endure such cold and pain to provide for his family is also present by the words “cracked hands that ached” (pg. 869 line3). This auditory and sensory image adds to tone that the father endured painful work in the cold yet never received any recognition or respect because“[n]o one ever thanked him” (pg. 870 line 5). The tone of the poem now changes from the son’s recollection of his father’s struggles to a regretful tone that no one ever acknowledged