Unspoken Love In Robert Hayden's Those Winter Sundays

At a certain point in our lives, as human beings, we go through “emotional roller coasters.” One of the biggest obstacles that may be unavoidable is regret. We certainly feel that if only we had known then what we know now, things may have turned out differently. Our world is altered through changes and experiences of maturity much like Robert Hayden’s “Those Winter Sundays.” It is a short poem about the rocky relationship between a father and son. The speaker is reflecting on his past and begins to understand the effort his father had given to show his compassion for him. Through misperception, the son was unable to identify the subtle expressions of love that his father had brought to him, leading the speaker to be inadequate to reciprocate …show more content…
Even though it is melancholy, this poem defines unspoken love. It begins with the father making the fire through the perspective of the author’s younger self. Then, the unspoken love is reiterated again through the author’s current self as he repeats the question, “What did I know, what did I know” (Hayden 909). This lead for readers to understand that the author was oblivious to his father’s sacrifices for his son’s benefit. With Hayden’s usage of vivid words, the audience is able to conjure up images of this symbolic vocabulary. Though starting off with a troubled past, the poem’s mood seems to change as it gives the character’s father a symbolic praise. When Hayden writes “cracked hands that ached” (Hayden 909), he is describing the father as a hard working individual and a representation how much he’s willing to go through to maintain his family. Being that the title states that it was many “winter Sundays,” his father was still able to keep the house warm. When the author says “No one ever thanked him” (Hayden 909) and that he would “speak indifferently” towards his father, this means that the author appears to be disappointed with himself for not appreciating his father at the time